your

--

the

father's

559 Ever since the period of his mother's death he | him that no drop of rain had fallen inside the had been oppressed by the conviction that cottage. As he spoke the words, he saw a some curse hung over the family. At first change pass over his grandfather's face they had been prosperous, they had got sharp features seemed to wither up on a sudmoney, a little legacy had been left them. den; the eager expression to grow vacant But this good fortune had availed only for a and death-like in an instant. The voice too time; disaster on disaster strangely and sud-altered; it was harsh and querulous no more; denly succeeded. Losses, misfortunes, pov-its tones became strangely soft, slow, and drip! drip! erty, want itself had overwhelmed them; his solemn, when the old man spoke again. "I hear it still," he said, " That ghostly father's temper had become so soured, that the oldest friends of François Sarzeau declared he faster and plainer than ever. was changed beyond recognition. And now, dropping of water is the last and the surest of all this past misfortune the steady, wither- the fatal signs which have told of ing, household blight of many years had and your brother's deaths to-night, and I ended in the last worst misery of all-in know from the place where I hear it-the death. The fate of his father and his brother foot of the bed I lie on that it is a warning admitted no longer of a doubt - he knew it, as to me of my own approaching end. I am he listened to the storm, as he reflected on his called where my son and my grandson have grandfather's words, as he called to mind his gone before me; my weary time in this world And is over at last. Don't let Rose and the chilown experience of the perils of the sea. this double bereavement had fallen on him just dren come in here, if they should awakeas the time was approaching for his marriage they are too young to look at death." with Rose; just when misfortune was most ominous of evil, just when it was hardest to bear! Forebodings which he dared not realize began now to mingle with the bitterness of his grief, whenever his thoughts wandered from the present to the future; and as he sat by the lonely fireside, murmuring from time to time the church prayer for the repose of the dead, he almost involuntarily mingled with it another prayer, expressed only in his own simple words, for the safety of the living - for the young girl whose love was his sole earthly treasure; for the motherless children who must now look for protection to him alone.

66

He had sat by the hearth a long, long time, absorbed in his thoughts, not once looking round towards the bed, when he was startled by hearing the sound of his grandfather's voice once more. Gabriel," whispered the old man, trembling and shrinking as he spoke. “Gabriel, do you hear a dripping of water now slow, now quick again—on the floor at the foot of my bed?"

"I hear nothing, grandfather, but the crackling of the fire, and the roaring of the storm outside."

"Drip, drip, drip! Faster and faster; plainer and plainer. Take the torch, Gabriel; look down on the floor-look with all your eyes. Is the place wet there? Is it God's rain that is dropping through the roof?"

Gabriel took the torch with trembling fingers, and knelt down on the floor to examine it closely. He started back from the place, as he saw that it was quite dry-the torch he fell on his knees dropped upon the hearth before the statue of the Virgin and hid his face.

"Is the floor wet? Answer me, I command you! Is the floor wet?" asked the old man quickly and breathlessly. Gabriel rose, went back to the bedside, and whispered to

Gabriel's blood curdled when he heard these words when he touched his grandfather's hand, and felt the chill that it struck to his when he listened to the raging wind, own and knew that all help was miles and miles away from the cottage. Still, in spite of the storm, the darkness, and the distance, he thought not for a moment of neglecting the duty that had been taught him from his childthe duty of summoning the priest to "I must call Rose," hoodthe bedside of the dying. he said, " to watch by you while I am away.' "Stop!" cried the old man, “stop, Gabriel; I implore, I command you not to leave me!" "The priest, grandfather - your confession

I

Gabriel!

"It must be made to you. In this darkness and this hurricane no man can keep the path across the heath. Gabriel! I am dying should be dead before you got back. for the love of the Blessed Virgin, stop here my time is short- I have with me till I diea terrible secret that I must tell to somebody before I draw my last breath! Your ear to my mouth!-quick! quick!"

As he spoke the last words, a slight noise was audible on the other side of the partition, The vigi. the door half opened! and Rose appeared at it, looking affrightedly into the room. suspicious even in lant eyes of the old mandeath-caught sight of her directly. "Go back!" he exclaimed faintly, before she could utter a word, "go back-push her back, Gabriel, and nail down the latch in the door, if she won't shut it of herself!"

"Dear Rose! go in again," implored Ga"Go in and keep the children from briel. disturbing us. You will only make him worse you can be of no use here!"

She obeyed without speaking, and shut the door again. While the old man clutched him by the arm, and repeated, "Quick! quick!

of the sides of the book, and through the hole some bank-notes bulged out. I saw them, and so did your father (don't move away, Gabriel; keep close, there's nothing in me to shrink from). Well, he shared his food, like an honest fellow, with us; and then put his hand in his pocket, and gave me four or five livres, and then lay down before the fire to go to sleep. As he shut his eyes, your father looked at me in a way I didn't like. He'd been behaving very bitterly and desperately towards us for some time past; being soured about poverty, and your mother's illness, and the constant crying out of you children for more to eat. So, when he told me to go and buy some wood, some bread, and some wine with the money I had got, I didn't like, somehow, to leave him alone with the stranger; and so made excuses, saying (which was true) that it was too late to buy things in the vil lage that night. But he told me in a rage to go and do as he bid me, and knock the people up if the shop was shut. So I went out, being dreadfully afraid of your fatheras indeed we all were at that time - but I could n't make up my mind to go far from the house; I was afraid of something happening, though I didn't dare to think what. I don't know how it was; but I stole back in about ten minutes on tip-toe, to the cottage; and looked in at the window; and saw- -O! God forgive him! O, God forgive me! I saw -I-more to drink, Gabriel! I can't speak again more to drink!"

your ear close to my mouth," Gabriel heard her say to the children (who were both awake), "Let us pray for grandfather.' And, as he knelt down by the bedside, there stole on his car the sweet, childish tones of his little sisters, and the soft, subdued voice of the young girl, who was teaching them the prayer, mingling divinely with the solemn wailing of wind and sea, rising in a still and awful purity over the hoarse, gasping whispers of the dying man. "I took an oath not to tell it, Gabriellean down closer! I'm weak, and they must n't hear a word in that room -I took an oath not to tell it; but death is a warrant to all men for breaking such an oath as that. Listen; don't lose a word I'm saying! Don't look away into the room the stain of blood-guilt has defiled it forever!-Hush! Hush! Hush! Let me speak. Now your father's dead, I can't carry the horrid secret with me into the grave. Just remember, Gabriel-try if you can't remember the time before I was bedridden ten years ago and more it was about six weeks, you know, before your mother's death; you can remember it by that. You and all the children were in that room with your mother; you were all asleep, I think; it was night, not very late - only nine o'clock. Your father and I were standing at the door, looking out at the heath in the moonlight. He was so poor at that time, he had been obliged to sell his own boat, and none of the neighbors would take him out fishing with them. your father was n't liked by any of the neighbors. Well; we saw a stranger coming towards us; a very young man, with a knapsack on his back. He looked like a gentleman, though he was but poorly dressed. He came up, and told us he was dead tired, and did n't think he could reach Gabriel, pray yourself, and teach your the town that night, and asked if we would children after you to pray, that your father give him shelter till morning. And your father may find forgiveness where he is now gone. said yes, if he would make no noise, because I saw him, plainly as I now see you, kneeling the wife was ill and the children were asleep. with his knife in one hand over the sleeping So he said all he wanted was to go to sleep man. He was taking the little book with the himself before the fire. We had nothing to notes in it out of the stranger's pocket. give him but black bread. He had better got the book into his possession, and held it food with him than that, and undid his knap- quite still in his hand for an instant, thinksack to get at it - and -and- Gabriel! I'ining. I believe-O, no! no! - I'm sure, sinking-drink something to drink I'm he was repeating; I am sure he was going to parched with thirst!" put the book back; but just at that moment the stranger moved, and raised one of his arms, as if he was waking up. Then, the temptation of the devil grew too strong for your father I saw him lift the hand with the knife in it- but saw nothing more. I could n ́t look in at the window I could n't move away I could n't cry out; I stood with my back turned towards the house, shivering all over, though it was a warm summer-time, and hearing no cries, no noises at all, from the room behind me. I was too frightened to know how long it was before the opening of the cottage door made me turn round;

Silent and deadly pale, Gabriel poured some of the cider from the pitcher on the table into a drinking cup, and gave it to the old man. Slight as the stimulant was, its effect on him was almast instantaneous. His dull eyes brightened a little, and he went on in the same whispering tones as before.

"He pulled the food out of his knapsack rather in a hurry, so that some of the other small things in it fell on the floor. Among these was a pocket-book, which your father picked up and gave him back; and he put it in his coat-pocket — there was a tear in one

The voices in the next room had ceased; but in the minute of silence which now ensued, Gabriel heard his sisters kissing Rose, and wishing her good-night. They were all three trying to go to sleep again.

66

He

but when I did, I saw your father standing ceased altogether; when she heard the sobs before me in the yellow moonlight, carrying that followed them; and when her heart told in his arms the bleeding body of the poor lad her who was weeping in the next room who had shared his food with us, and slept then, she began to be influenced by a new on our hearth. Hush hush! Don't groan feeling which was stronger than the strongest and sob in that way! Stifle it with the bed- fear, and she opened the door without hesitatclothes. Hush! you'll wake them in the ing-almost without trembling. next room!"

after all by a miracle." He laid the boy
down where he could get the full warmth of
the fire; and then, turning round, took a
wicker-covered bottle from his pocket, and
said, "If it had n't been for the brandy!-
He stopped suddenly started put down
the bottle on the bench near him and ad-
vanced quickly to the bedside.
Rose looked after him as he went; and saw
Gabriel, who had risen when the door was
opened, moving back from the bed as François
approached. The young man's face seemed
to have been suddenly struck to stone-its
blank ghastly whiteness was awful to look at.
He moved slowly backward and backward
till he came to the cottage wall- then stood
quite still, staring on his father with wild,
vacant eyes, moving his hands to and fro be-
fore him, muttering; but never pronouncing
one audible word.

bling all over," said François. "If he is dying at all, he is dying of cold help me to lift him, bed and all, to the hearth.”

66

Ga

No, no! don't let him touch me!" gasped "the old man. "Don't let him look at me in that way! Don't let him come near me, briel! Is it his ghost? or is it himself?" As Gabriel answered, he heard a knocking at the door. His father opened it; and disclosed to view some people from the neighboring fishing village, who had come more out of curiosity than sympathy to inquire whether François and the boy, Pierre, had survived the night. Without asking any one to enter, the fisherman surlily and shortly answered the various questions addressed to him, standing in his own doorway. While he was thus engaged, Gabriel heard his grandfather muttering vacantly to himself - Last night-how about last night, grandson? What was I talking about last night? Did I say your father was drowned? Very foolish to say he was drowned, and then see him come back alive again? But it wasn't that Still Gabriel could not speak. Rose saw it, I'm so weak in my head, I can't rememand answered for him. Gabriel is afraid ber! What was it, Gabriel? Something too that his poor grandfather is dead," she whis- horrible to speak of? Is that what you 're pered nervously. whispering and trembling about? I said "Dead!" There was no sorrow in the nothing horrible. A crime? Bloodshed? I tone, as he echoed the word. "Was he very know nothing of any crime or bloodshed here bad in the night before his death happened? Did he wander in his mind? He has been rather light-headed lately.”

François did not appear to notice his son; he had the coverlid of the bed in his hand. "Anything the matter here?" he asked, as he drew it down.

"He was very restless, and spoke of the ghostly warnings that we all know of: he said he saw and heard many things which told him from the other world that you and Pierre Gabriel!" she screamed, suddenly interrupting herself. "Look at him! Look at his face! Your grandfather is not dead!" At that moment, François was raising his father's head to look closely at him. A faint spasm had indeed passed over the deathly face; the lips quivered, the jaw dropped. François shuddered as he looked, and moved away hastily from the bed. At the same instant Gabriel started from the wall; his expression altered, his pale cheeks flushed suddenly, as he snatched up the wicker-cased bottle, and poured all the little brandy that was left in it down his grandfather's throat. The effect was nearly instantaneous; the sinking vital forces rallied desperately. The old man's eyes opened again, wandered round the room, then fixed themselves intently on François, as he stood near the fire. Trying and terrible as his position was at that moment, Gabriel still retained self-possession enough to whisper a few words in Rose's ear. "Go back again into the bedroom, and take the children with you," he said. "We may have something to speak about which you had better not hear."

"Son Gabriel, your grandfather is trem

I must have been frightened out of my wits to talk in that way! The Merchant's Table? Only a big heap of old stones! What with the storm, and thinking I was going to die, and being afraid about your father, I must have been light-headed. Don't give another thought to that nonsense, Gabriel! I'm better now. We shall all live to laugh at poor grandfather for talking nonsense about crime and bloodshed in his sleep. Ah! poor old man - last night-light-headed - fancies and nonsense of an old man- why don't you laugh at it? I'm laughing - so light-headed so light-!"

He stopped suddenly. A low cry, partly of terror and partly of pain, escaped him; the look of pining anxiety and imbecile cunning which had distorted his face while he had been speaking, faded from it forever. He shivered a little- breathed heavily once or twice- then became quite still. Had he died with a falsehood on his lips?

Gabriel looked round, and saw that the cottage-door was closed, and that his father was standing against it. How long he had occupied that position, how many of the old man's last words he had heard, it was impossible to conjecture, but there was a lowering suspicion in his harsh face as he now looked away from the corpse to his son, which made Gabriel shudder; and the first question that he asked, once more approaching the bedside, was expressed in tones which, quiet as they were, had a fearful meaning in them. "What did

your grandfather talk about last night?" he asked.

trying in every way. He must have been a good deal shaken in his wits, last night, beGabriel did not answer. All that he had tween fears about himself, and fears about me. heard, all that he had seen, all the misery and (To think of my being angry with you, Gahorror that might yet be to come, had stunned briel, for being a little alarmed very natuhis mind. The unspeakable dangers of his pres- rally-by an old man's queer fancies!) Come ent position were too tremendous to be real-out, Rose- -come out of the bedroom whenized. He could only feel vaguely as yet in the weary torpor that oppressed his heart; while in every other direction the use of his faculties, physical and mental, seemed to have suddenly and totally abandoned him.

ever you are tired of it: you must learn sooner or later to look at death calmly. Shake hands, Gabriel; and let us make it up, and say no more about what has passed. You won't? Still angry with me for what I said to you just now? Ah! - you'll think better about it, by the time I return. Come out, Rose, we 've no secrets here."

"Where are you going to?" asked Gabriel, as he saw his father hastily open the door.

"To tell the priest that one of his congregation is dead, and to have the death registered," answered François. "These are my duties, and must be performed before I take any rest."

"Is your tongue wounded, son Gabriel, as well as your arm?" his father went on, with a bitter laugh. "I come back to you, saved by a miracle; and you never speak to me. Would you rather I had died than the old man there? He can't hear you now - why should n't you tell me what nonsense he was talking last night? You won't? I say you shall!" (He crossed the room and put his back to the door.) Before either of us leave this place, you shall confess it! You know that my duty He went out hurriedly, as he said these to the Church bids me go at once, and tell the words. Gabriel almost trembled at himself, priest of your grandfather's death. If I leave when he found that he breathed more freely, that duty unfulfilled, remember it is through that he felt less horribly oppressed both in your fault! You keep me here for here I mind and body, the moment his father's back stop till I am obeyed. Do you hear that, idiot? was turned. Fearful as that thought was now, Speak! Speak instantly, or you shall repent it was still a change for the better even to be it to the day of your death! I ask again capable of thinking at all. Was the behavior what did your grandfather say to you when of his father compatible with innocence? he was wandering in his mind, last night?" Could the old man's confused denial of his "He spoke of a crime, committed by own words in the morning and in the presence another, and guiltily kept secret by him," of his son, be set for one instant against the answered Gabriel slowly and sternly. "And circumstantial confession that he had made this morning he denied his own words with his last living breath. But last night, if he spoke the truth-"

during the night, alone with his grandson? These were the terrible questions which Gabriel now asked himself; and which he shrank in"The truth!" echoed François. "What voluntarily from answering. And yet, that truth?" He stopped, his eyes fell, then doubt, the solution of which would one way· turned towards the corpse. For a few minutes or the other irrevocably affect the whole future he stood steadily contemplating it; breathing of his life, must sooner or later be solved at quickly, and drawing his hand several times any hazards! There was but one way of setacross his forehead. Then he faced his son ting it at rest-to go instantly, while his. once more. In that short interval he had be- father was absent, and examine the hollow come in outward appearance a changed man: place under "The Merchant's Table." If his expression, voice, and manner, all were al- grandfather's confession had really been made tered. "Heaven forgive me!" he said, "but while he was in possession of his senses, this I could almost laugh at myself, at this solemn place (which Gabriel knew to be covered in moment, for having spoken and acted just now from wind and weather) had never been visso much like a fool! Denied his words, did ited since the commission of the crime by the he? Poor old man! they say sense often perpetrator, or by his unwilling accomplice: comes back to light-headed people just before though time had destroyed all besides, the death; and he is a proof of it. The fact is, hair and the bones of the victim would still be Gabriel, my own wits must have been a little left to bear witness to the truth-if truth shaken and no wonder - by what I went had indeed been spoken. As this conviction through last night and what I have come grew on him, the young man's cheek paled; home to this morning. As if you, or anybody, and he stopped irresolute, half way between could ever really give serious credit to the wan- the hearth and the door. Then he looked dering speeches of a dying old man! (Where down doubtfully at the corpse on the bed;. is Rose? Why did you send her away?) I and then there came upon him, suddenly, a don't wonder at your still looking a little revulsion of feeling. A wild, feverish impastartled, and feeling low in your mind, and all tience to know the worst without another inthat for you've had a trying night of it;stant of delay possessed him. Only telling