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THE MILL OF SILENCE
THE MILL OF SILENCE
A PRIZE STORY In The Chicago Record’s series of “Stories of Mystery.” THE MILL OF SILENCE BY B. E. J. CAPES, Author of “The Uttermost Farthing,” “The Haunted Tower,” etc. (This story—out of 816 competing—was awarded the second prize in The Chicago Record’s “$30,000 to Authors” competition.) Copyright, 1896, by B. E. J. Capes....
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CHAPTER I. THE INMATES OF THE MILL.
CHAPTER I. THE INMATES OF THE MILL.
My story begins like a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a miller who had three sons. Here, however, the resemblance ceases. At this late date I, the last stricken inmate of the Mill of Silence, set it down for a warning and a menace; not entirely in despair, perhaps, but with a fitful flickering of hope that at the last moment my soul may be rent from me into a light it has never yet foreseen. We were three brothers, sons of a gray, old man, whose father, and his father before him, had own
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CHAPTER II. A NIXIE.
CHAPTER II. A NIXIE.
My brother tired of his fishing for the nonce, and for an hour we lay on our backs in the grass chatting desultorily. “Jason,” said I, suddenly, “what do we live on?” “What we can get,” said my brother, sleepily. “But I mean—where does it come from; who provides it?” “Oh, don’t bother, Renny. We have enough to eat and drink and do as we like. What more do you want?” “I don’t know. I want to know, that’s all. I can’t tell why. Where does the money come from?” “Tom Tiddler. He was our grandfather.
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CHAPTER III. THE MILL AND THE CHANGELING.
CHAPTER III. THE MILL AND THE CHANGELING.
The outer appearance of the old mill in which we lived and grew up I have touched upon; and now I take up my pen to paint in black and white the old, moldering interior of the shell. The building stood upon a triple arch of red brick that spanned the stream, and extended from shore to shore, where, on each side, a house of later date stood cheek to jowl with it. It looked but an indifferent affair as viewed from the little bridge aforesaid, which was dedicated to St. Swithun of watery memory, bu
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CHAPTER IV. ZYP BEWITCHES.
CHAPTER IV. ZYP BEWITCHES.
In the evening Dr. Crackenthorpe paid us a visit. He found my father out, but elected to sit with us and smoke his pipe expectant of the other’s return. He always treated us boys as if we were so much dirt, and we respected his strength just sufficiently to try no pranks on him in the absence of the ruling power. But nevertheless we resented his presumption of authority, and whenever he sat with us alone made an exaggerated affectation of being thick in whispered confidences among ourselves. Zyp
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CHAPTER V. A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW.
CHAPTER V. A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW.
Zyp had been with us a month, and surely never did changeling happen into a more congenial household. Jason she still held at arm’s length, which, despite my admiration of my brother, I secretly congratulated my heart on, for—let me get over it at the outset—from first to last, I have never wavered in my passion of love for this wild, beautiful creature. The unexpectedness of her coming alone was a romance, the delight of which has never palled upon me with the deadening years. Therefore it was
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CHAPTER VI. THE NIGHT BEFORE.
CHAPTER VI. THE NIGHT BEFORE.
Full of dissatisfaction I wandered into the shed and loitered aimlessly about. As I stood there Jason came clattering homeward, his coat collar turned up and his curly head bowed to the deluge. “So you got home before me?” he said, shaking himself and squeezing his cap out as he spoke. “Yes; we came straight.” “It was lovely in the meads, wasn’t it?” said he, with an odd glance at me. “It’s been lovely all this May,” said I. “And that means a fat churchyard. Old Rottengoose says: ‘A cold May and
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CHAPTER VII. THE POOL OF DEATH.
CHAPTER VII. THE POOL OF DEATH.
Morning brought a pitcher of comfort with it on its gossamer wings. Who, at 17, can wake from restoring sleep to find the June sun on his face and elect to breakfast on bitter wormwood, with the appetizing fry of good country bacon caressing his nostrils through every chink of the boards? Indeed, I was not born to hate, or to any decided vice or virtue, but was of those who, taking a middle course, are kicked to the wall or into the gutter as the Fates have a fancy. I was friendly with myself, w
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CHAPTER VIII. THE WAKING.
CHAPTER VIII. THE WAKING.
The carter was holding the curtain back and critically apostrophizing the thing within. “Ay, he be sound enough. Reckon nought but the last trump’ll waken yon. Now, youngster, where may you live?” I told him. “Sure,” he said, “the old crazed mill?” Then I thought he muttered: “Well, ’tis one vermin the less,” but I was not sure and nothing mattered—nothing. He asked me if I would like to ride with it inside. The mere suggestion was terror to me, and I stammered out that I would rather walk, for
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CHAPTER IX. THE FACE ON THE PILLOW.
CHAPTER IX. THE FACE ON THE PILLOW.
Often the first shock of some unexpected mental blow shakes from the soul, not its corresponding emotion, but that emotion’s exact antithesis. Thus, when Jason spoke I laughed. I could not on the moment believe that such hideous retribution was demanded of my already writhed and repentant conscience, and it seemed to me that he must be jesting in very ugly fashion. Perhaps he looked astonished; anyhow he said: “You needn’t make a joke of it. Are you awake? Modred’s dead, I tell you.” I sprung fr
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CHAPTER X. JASON SPEAKS.
CHAPTER X. JASON SPEAKS.
For some three weeks I had lain racked and shriveled in a nervous, delirious fever. It left me at last, the ghost of my old self, to face once more the problems of a ruined life. For many days these gave me no concern, or only in a fitful, indifferent manner. I was content to sip the dew of convalescence, to slumber and to cherish my exhaustion, and the others disturbed me but little. My recovery once assured, they left me generally to myself, scarce visiting me more often than was necessary for
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CHAPTER XI. CONVICT, BUT NOT SENTENCED.
CHAPTER XI. CONVICT, BUT NOT SENTENCED.
So the blow had fallen! Yet a single despairing effort I made to beat off or at least postpone the inevitable. I sat up in bed and answered my brother back with, I could feel, ashen and quivering lips. “What do you mean?” I said. “How dare you say such a thing?” “I dare anything,” he said, “where I have a particular object in view.” He never took his eyes off me, and the cold devil in them froze my blood that had only now run so hotly. “For yourself,” he went on, “I don’t care much whether you h
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CHAPTER XII. THE DENUNCIATION.
CHAPTER XII. THE DENUNCIATION.
One November morning—my suffering had endured all these months—my father and Dr. Crackenthorpe stood before the sitting-room fire, talking, while I sat with a book at the table, vainly trying to concentrate my attention on the printed lines. Since my recovery I had seen the doctor frequently, but he had taken little apparent notice of me. Now, I had racked my puzzled mind many a time for recollection of the conversation I had been witness of on the night preceding my seizure, but still the detai
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CHAPTER XIII. MY FRIEND THE CRIPPLE.
CHAPTER XIII. MY FRIEND THE CRIPPLE.
In the year 1860, of which I now write, so much of prejudice against railways still existed among many people of a pious or superstitious turn of mind, that I can quote much immediate precedent in support of my resolve to walk to London rather than further tempt a Providence I had already put to so severe a strain. It must be borne in mind of course that we Trenders were little more than barbarians of an unusual order, who had been nourished on a scorn of progress and redeemed only by a natural
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CHAPTER XIV. I OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT.
CHAPTER XIV. I OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT.
It was broad day when we emerged from the inclosure, and sound was awakening along the wintry streets. London stood before me rosy and refreshed, so that she looked no longer formidably unapproachable as she had in her garb of black and many jewels. I might have entered her yesterday with the proverbial half-crown, so easily was my lot to fall in accommodating places. Duke Straw, whom I was henceforth to call my friend, conducted me by a township of intricate streets to the shop of a law station
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CHAPTER XV. SWEET, POOR DOLLY.
CHAPTER XV. SWEET, POOR DOLLY.
“Trender,” said Duke, unexpectedly after a silence the next morning, as we loitered over breakfast, “pay attention to one thing. I don’t ask you for a fragment of your past history and don’t want to hear anything about it. You’ll say, as yet you haven’t offered me your confidence, and quite right, too, on the top of our short acquaintance. But don’t ever offer it to me, you understand? Our friendship starts from sunrise, morning by morning, and lasts the day. I don’t mean it shall be the less tr
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CHAPTER XVI. A FATEFUL ACCIDENT.
CHAPTER XVI. A FATEFUL ACCIDENT.
We loitered on the river till the short day was threatening dusk, and then we were still no further on our homeward way than a half-mile short of Kingston. A little cold wind, moreover, was beginning to whine and scratch over the surface of the water, and Dolly pulled her tippet closer about her bosom, feeling chilled and inclined to silence. “Come,” said Duke, “we must put our shoulders to it or we shan’t get into the lock before dark.” “Oh!” cried the girl, with a half-whimper, “I had forgotte
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CHAPTER XVII. A TOUCHING REVELATION.
CHAPTER XVII. A TOUCHING REVELATION.
For nearly four years did I work persistently, striving to redeem my past, at the offices in Great Queen Street. At this period my position was greatly improved, my services estimated at a value that was as honorable to my employer as it was advantageous to me. I had grown to be fairly at peace with myself and more hopeful for the future than I had once deemed it possible that I could ever be. Not all so, however. The phantom light that had danced before my youthful eyes, danced before them stil
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CHAPTER XVIII. A VOICE FROM THE CROWD.
CHAPTER XVIII. A VOICE FROM THE CROWD.
Dolly had been unusually silent during the afternoon, and now, as we turned to retrace our steps in the direction of the station from which we were to take train for London, she walked beside me without uttering a word. Suddenly, however, she put her hand upon my arm and stayed me. “Renny,” she said, “will you stop a little while? I want to speak to you.” “All right,” I said; “speak away.” “Not here—not here. Come off the path; there’s a seat out there.” Seeing with surprise that her face was pa
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CHAPTER XIX. A MENACE.
CHAPTER XIX. A MENACE.
At first I hardly grasped the import of my brother’s words, or the fact that here was the old fateful destiny upon me again, so lost were the few faculties I could command in wonder at his unexpected appearance in London. I stared and stared and had not a word to say. “Where’s your tongue, old chap?” he cried. “This is an affectionate greeting on your part, upon my word, and after near four years, too.” I pressed my hand across my forehead and strove to smooth the confusion therefrom. “You must
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CHAPTER XX. DUKE SPEAKS.
CHAPTER XX. DUKE SPEAKS.
That evening, in the luminous dusk of our sitting-room, I sat up and gave Duke my history. He would have stopped me at the outset, but I would brook no eccentric philosophy in the imperious fever of insistence that was my mood. I told him of all that related personally to me—my deed, my repentance—my brother’s exposure and renewed menaces; but to Zyp I only referred in such manner as to convey the impression that whatever influence she had once exerted over me was dead with boyhood and scarcely
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CHAPTER XXI. THE CALM BEFORE.
CHAPTER XXI. THE CALM BEFORE.
Long after the storm had broken and rolled away were we still sitting talking in the dim lamplight. In these hours I learned what dark confidences my friend had to give me as to his solitary and haunted past; learned more truly, also, than I had ever done as yet, the value of a moral courage that had enabled him, dogged by the cruelest hate of adversity, to emerge from the furnace noble and thrice refined. He had been picked up, as a mere child drowning in the river, by the Thames police and had
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CHAPTER XXII. THE SHADOW OF THE STORM.
CHAPTER XXII. THE SHADOW OF THE STORM.
Dolly met me the next morning, looking shy and half-frightened as a child caught fruit-picking. She gave me her hand with no show of heartiness, and withdrew it at once as if its fingers were the delicate antennae of her innocent soul and I her natural enemy. “Where shall we go, Renny?” she asked, glancing timidly up at me. “To Epping again, Dolly, dear. I’ve set my heart on it.” She seemed at first as if about to ask me why; then to shrink from a subject she dreaded appearing to have a leading
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CHAPTER XXIII. A LETTER AND AN ANSWER.
CHAPTER XXIII. A LETTER AND AN ANSWER.
“You dog!” I said, in a low, stern voice; “tell me the meaning of this.” He gave a little, mocking, airy laugh and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, wheeled round upon me. “What’s your question?” said he. “You know. What have you said to the girl to make her treat me like this?” He raised his eyebrows in assumed perplexity. “Really,” he said, “you go a long way to seek. What have I said? How have you behaved, you mean.” “You lie—I don’t! I know her, that’s enough. If you have told her my st
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CHAPTER XXIV. LOST.
CHAPTER XXIV. LOST.
The week that followed was a sad and lonely one to me. My romance was ended—my friend parted from me—my heart ever wincing under the torture of self-reproach. As to the first, it would seem that I should have no great reason for insuperable regret. The situation had been made for, not by me; I was free to let my thoughts revert unhampered to the object of my first and only true love. That was all so; yet I know I brooded over my loss for the time being, as if it were the greatest that could have
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CHAPTER XXV. A LAST MESSAGE.
CHAPTER XXV. A LAST MESSAGE.
Dolly never came to work the next morning, but there arrived a little letter from her to Mr. Ripley, giving notice, that was all, with no address or clew to her whereabouts, and an intimation that it was understood she sacrificed her position—pitiful heaven, for what? My employer tossed the note to me indifferently, asking me to see about the engagement of a fresh hand, if necessary. He little guessed what those few simple words meant to two of his staff, or foresaw the tragedy to which they wer
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CHAPTER XXVI. FROM THE DEPTHS.
CHAPTER XXVI. FROM THE DEPTHS.
Into a dull, gusty room, barren of everything but the necessities of its office, we walked and stopped. Distempered walls; a high desk, a railed dock, where creatures were put to the first question like an experimental torture; black windows high in the wall and barred with network of wire, as if to break into fragments the sunshine of hope; a double gas bracket on an arm hanging from the ceiling, grimly suggestive of a gallows; a fireplace whose warmth was ruthlessly boxed in—such was the place
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CHAPTER XXVII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
CHAPTER XXVII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
Tearing up the steps, I almost fell into the arms of our guide of the long, hideous night. “Can I see it?” I cried. “Steady, sir,” he said, staying and supporting me with a hand. “What’s up now?” “I want to see it—there was a letter—I——” “All property found on the body is took possession of.” “He saw it, I tell you.” “Your friend, there? So he did—but he gave it over.” “I’ll give it over. I don’t want to keep it, man. There was an address on it—there must have been, I swear; and if you don’t let
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CHAPTER XXVIII. THE TABLES TURNED.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE TABLES TURNED.
In the first shock of the vision I did not realize to its full extent the profoundness of my brother’s villainy or of my own loss. Indeed, for the moment I was so numbed with amazement as to find place for no darker sentiment in my breast. “Why, it’s Renny!” said Zyp, and my heart actually rose with a brief exultation to hear my name on her lips once more. The game once taken out of his hands, Jason, with characteristic sang froid, withdrew into the background, prepared to let the waters of dest
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CHAPTER XXIX. A SUDDEN DETERMINATION.
CHAPTER XXIX. A SUDDEN DETERMINATION.
The inquest was over; the jury had returned a merciful verdict; the mortal perishing part of poor, weak and lovable Dolly was put gently out of sight for the daisies to grow over by and by. Jason had been called, but, not responding, and his presumed evidence being judged not necessarily material to the inquiry, had escaped the responsibility of an examination and, as I knew, for the time being at least, a deadlier risk. Mention of his name left an ugly stain on the proceedings, and that was all
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CHAPTER XXX. I GO HOME.
CHAPTER XXX. I GO HOME.
So much of strange incident had crowded with action the long years of my life in London, that, as I walked from the station down into the old cathedral town, a feeling of wonder was on me that the hand of time had dealt so gently with the landmarks of my youth. Here were the same old gates and churches and houses I had known, unaltered unless for an additional film of the fragrant lichen of age. The very ruins of the ancient castle and palace were stone by stone such as I remembered them. There
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CHAPTER XXXI. ONE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.
CHAPTER XXXI. ONE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.
The explanation I had desired for the morrow I determined to bring about there and then. I went and stood above the old man and looked down upon him. “Dad,” I said, softly, “once before, if you remember, I came to you heart-full of the question that I am now going to put to you again. I was a boy then, and likely you did right in refusing me your confidence. Now I am a man, and, dad, a man whose soul has been badly wounded in its sore struggle with life.” He had drooped forward as I began, but a
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CHAPTER XXXII. OLD PEGGY.
CHAPTER XXXII. OLD PEGGY.
The months that immediately followed my home-coming were passed by me in an aimless, desultory temporizing with the vexed problems that, unanswered, were consuming my heart. I roamed the country as of old and renewed my acquaintance with bird, fish and insect. Starting to gather a collection of butterflies and moths—many of which were local and rare—with the mere object of filling in the lapses of a restless ennui and in some dull gratitude to a pursuit that had helped me to a little degree of l
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CHAPTER XXXIII. FACE TO FACE.
CHAPTER XXXIII. FACE TO FACE.
In the cool of the evening I knocked at Dr. Crackenthorpe’s front door. No one answering—his one servant was gadding, probably—I tried the handle, found it to be on the latch only, and walked in. The house was quiet as a desert, save that from the doctor’s private consulting-room, as he called it, issued a little, weak, snoring sound. I paused in the dusky passage before tapping at the closed door of this room. The whole place was faintly stringent with the atmosphere that comes from a poor habi
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CHAPTER XXXIV. I VISIT A GRAVE.
CHAPTER XXXIV. I VISIT A GRAVE.
All that night I tossed and tossed, in vain effort to court the sleep that should quench the fever in my racked and bewildered brain. My errand had been a failure. In every sense but the purely personal, it had been a failure. And now, indeed, that personal side was the one that least concerned me. As to every other soul in whom I was interested, it seemed that a single false step on my part might lead to the destruction of any one of them. Where could I look for the least comfort or assistance?
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CHAPTER XXXV. ONE SAD VISITOR.
CHAPTER XXXV. ONE SAD VISITOR.
The autumn of that year broke upon us with sobbing winds and wild, wet gusts of tempest laden with flying leaves. In the choked trenches, drowned grasses swayed and swung like torn skirt fringes of the meadows; in the woods, drenched leaves clung together and talked, through the lulls, of the devastation that was wrecking their aftermath of glory. It had been blowing in soft, irresistible onrushes all one dank October day, and all day had I spent in the high woods that crown the gentle hills thr
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CHAPTER XXXVI. I GO TO LONDON.
CHAPTER XXXVI. I GO TO LONDON.
I walked home that night in a dream. The white road lay a long, luminous ribbon before me; the wet hedges were fragrant with scented mist; there was only the sound in my ears of my own quick breathing, but in my heart the echo of the sweet wild voice that had but now so thrilled and tortured me. I thought of her swerving presently from her dreary road southward, to sleep under some bush or briar, fearless in her beauty—fearless in her confidence of the rich nature about her that was so much her
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CHAPTER XXXVII. A FACE.
CHAPTER XXXVII. A FACE.
Dark was falling as on my return I came within sound of the mill race. I thought I could make out a little group of people leaning over the stone balustrade of the bridge as I approached. Such I found to be the case, and among them Dr. Crackenthorpe standing up gaunt in his long brown coat. I was turning in at the yard, when this individual hailed me, and by doing so brought all the faces round in my direction. I walked up to him. “Well?” I said. “These good folk are curious. It’s no affair of m
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CHAPTER XXXVIII. A NIGHT PURSUIT.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. A NIGHT PURSUIT.
I rushed across the room and looked out through the dim glass. At first I could make out nothing until a faint form resolved itself suddenly into a face, gray and set as the block of stone it looked over. It never moved, but remained thus as if it were a sculptured death designed to take stock forever with a petrified stare of the crumbling mill. Then, as my eyes grew accustomed to the outlines, I saw that it leaned down in reality, with its chin resting on its hands that were crossed over the t
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CHAPTER XXXIX. A STRANGE VIGIL.
CHAPTER XXXIX. A STRANGE VIGIL.
Had Jason fainted, as I thought he had, his enemy would have been upon him before I was aware of his presence even. As it was, in an instant I had interposed my body between them. For a full minute, perhaps, we remained thus, like figures of stone, before I found my voice. “You can go back,” I said, never taking my eyes off him. “It’s too late.” He gave no answer, nor did he change his position. “I won’t appeal to you,” I said, “by any claim of old friendship, to leave this poor wretch in peace.
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CHAPTER XL. A STORY AND ITS SEQUEL.
CHAPTER XL. A STORY AND ITS SEQUEL.
Nine months had passed since my parting with Duke on the hillside, and my life in the interval had flowed on with an easy uneventful monotony that was at least restorative to my turbulent soul. We had not once heard during this stretch of time from Jason or Zyp, and could only conclude that, finding asylum in some remote corner of the world, they would not risk discovery in it by word or sign. Letters, like homing pigeons, sometimes go astray. Duke had put in no second appearance. Dr. Crackentho
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CHAPTER XLI. ACROSS THE WATER.
CHAPTER XLI. ACROSS THE WATER.
For an instant the blood in my arteries seemed to stop, so that I gasped when I tried to speak. “What boy was that?” I said, in a forced voice, when I could command myself. “What boy?—eh?—what boy?” His eyes were wandering up and down the wall again. “Him, I say, as they burried quick—young Trender o’ the mill.” “How do you know he was buried alive? How could he have been if he was murdered?” “How do I know? He were murdered, I say. I’m George White, the sexton—and what I knows, I knows.” “And t
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CHAPTER XLII. JASON’S SECOND VISIT.
CHAPTER XLII. JASON’S SECOND VISIT.
It behooves me now to pass over a period of two years during which so little happened that bore directly upon the fortunes of any concerned in this lamentable history that to touch upon them would be to specify merely the matter-of-fact occurrences of ordinary daily life. To me they were an experience of peace and rest such as I had never yet known. I think—a long sleep on the broad sands of forgetfulness, whitherward the storm had cast me, and from which it was to tear me by and by with redoubl
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CHAPTER XLIII. ANOTHER RESPITE.
CHAPTER XLIII. ANOTHER RESPITE.
Jason stood looking stupidly down on the prostrate form, while I ran to it and struggled to turn it over and up into a sitting posture. “Father!” I cried, “I’m here—don’t you know me?”—then I turned fiercely to my brother and bade him shift his position out of the range of the staring eyes. “What’s the matter?” he muttered, sullenly. “I’ve done no harm. Can’t he see me, even, without going off into a fit?” “Get further away; do you hear?” He shambled aside, murmuring to himself. A little tremulo
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CHAPTER XLIV. THE SECRET OF THE WHEEL.
CHAPTER XLIV. THE SECRET OF THE WHEEL.
The day that followed the unlooked-for visit of my brother Jason to the mill my father spent in bed. When, in the morning, I took him up his breakfast, I could not help noticing that the broad light flooding the room emphasized a change in him that I had been only partly conscious of the evening before. It was as if, during the night, the last gleams of his old restless spirit had died out. I thought all edges in him blunted—the edges of fear, of memory, of observation, of general interest in li
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CHAPTER XLV. I MAKE A DESCENT.
CHAPTER XLV. I MAKE A DESCENT.
If it had many a time occurred to me, since first I heard of the jar of coins, that the secret of their concealment was connected somehow within the room of silence, it must have done so from that old association of my father with a place that the rest of us so dreaded and avoided. The scorn of superstitious terror that he showed in his choice; the certainty that none would dream of looking there; the encouragement his own mysterious actions gave to the sense of a haunting atmosphere that seemed
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CHAPTER XLVI. CAUGHT.
CHAPTER XLVI. CAUGHT.
In the first horror of blackness I came near to letting go the rope and falling from my perch on the blade. My brain went with a swing and turn and a sick wave overwhelmed my heart and flooded all my chest with nausea. Was I trapped after all—and just when confidence seemed established in me? For some evil moments I remained as I was, not daring to move, to look up, even; blinded only by the immediate plunge into cabined night, terrible and profound. I had left the matches above. There was no re
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CHAPTER XLVII. SOME ONE COMES AND GOES.
CHAPTER XLVII. SOME ONE COMES AND GOES.
November had come, with early frosts that flattened the nasturtiums in the town gardens and stiffened belated bees on the Michaelmas daisies, that were the very taverns of nature to lure them from their decent homes. This year the complacent dogmatism of an ancient proverb was most amply justified by results: “Be there ice in November that ’ill bear a duck, There’ll be nothing after but sludge and muck.” The bellying winds of December were to drive up such clouds of rain and storm that every gul
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CHAPTER XLVIII. A FRUITLESS SEARCH.
CHAPTER XLVIII. A FRUITLESS SEARCH.
One result of Dr. Crackenthorpe’s visit was that I determined to then and there push my secret inquiries to a head in the direction of my friend, the sexton of St. John’s. I had not seen or heard of this man since the day of his seizure in the archway of the close, but I thought his attack must surely by now have yielded and left him sane again. That very afternoon, leaving my father comfortably established with book and paper, I walked over to the old churchyard under the hill and looked about
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CHAPTER XLIX. A QUIET WARNING.
CHAPTER XLIX. A QUIET WARNING.
I fully expected to be summoned as a witness to the inquest held on George White. However, as it turned out, they left me alone, and for that I was thankful, though indeed I had little to fear from any cross-examination; and Dr. Crackenthorpe would hardly have ventured under the circumstances to use his professional influence to my discomfiture, seeing that I had shown knowledge of the fact that between him and the dead man was once, at least, some species of understanding. So he gave his versio
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CHAPTER L. STRICKEN DOWN.
CHAPTER L. STRICKEN DOWN.
For ten minutes, during which the city was blind with hail, I could see nothing but a thicket of white strings dense as the threads in a loom; hear nothing but the pounding crash of thunder and fierce hiss and clatter of the driving stones. Then darkness gathered within and without, and down came the storm with an access of fury that seemed verily as if it must flatten out the town like a scattered ants’ nest. So infernal for the moment was the uproar that I hurried to my father’s side, fearful
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CHAPTER LI. A MEETING ON THE BRIDGE.
CHAPTER LI. A MEETING ON THE BRIDGE.
It was not immediate death that had alighted, but death’s forerunner, paralysis. I realized this in a moment. The mute and stricken figure; the closed eyes; the darkly flushed face wrenched to the right and the flapping breath issuing one-sided from the lips—I needed no experience to read the meaning of these. I ran to the head of the stairs and shrieked to old Peggy to come up. Then I hurried to the dressing-table and lighted a candle that stood thereon. As I took it in my hand to approach the
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CHAPTER LII. A WRITTEN WORD.
CHAPTER LII. A WRITTEN WORD.
My escape from that strong net of fatality that had enmeshed so many years of my still young life, had been, it seemed, only a merciful respite. Now the toils, regathering about me again, woke a spirit of hopeless resignation in me that had been foreign to my earlier mood of resistance. Man has made of himself so plodding an animal as to almost resent the unreality of his brief vacations. He eats his way, like a wood-boring larva, through a monotonous tunnel of routine, satisfied with the though
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CHAPTER LIII. AN ATTEMPT AND A FAILURE.
CHAPTER LIII. AN ATTEMPT AND A FAILURE.
For a minute or more I must have stood gazing down on the damning words, unmoving, breathless almost. Then I glanced at the quiet face on the pillow and back again to the tablet I held in my hand. I am glad to know—proud, in the little pride I may call mine—that at that supreme moment I stood stanch; that I cried to myself: “It is a lie, born of his disease! He never did it!” That I dashed the tablet back upon the bed and that my one overwhelming thought was: “How may I defend this poor soul fro
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CHAPTER LIV. A LAST CONFESSION.
CHAPTER LIV. A LAST CONFESSION.
I thought that the old woman, startled by our entrance, had merely stepped back, tripped and so come to the ground; but the doctor uttered an exclamation, ran to the prostrate figure and called me to bring a spongeful of water from the wash-hand-stand. When I had complied I saw that the ancient limbs were rigid; the teeth set, the lips foaming slightly. Peggy was in an epileptic fit and that at her age was no light matter. I feared that her struggles might presently wake my father, who was to al
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CHAPTER LV. A SHADOW FROM THE PAST.
CHAPTER LV. A SHADOW FROM THE PAST.
Like one in a dream I heard the doctor’s footstep recede down the stairs and heard the yard door close dully on him as he left the house. In my suffering soul I felt one cruel shaft rankling, and for the rest only a vague sense of loss hung like a cloud over all my faculties. I had no doubt of the truth of the evil creature’s words. Not otherwise could his knowledge and possession of the tattered portrait be accounted for. Now, too, Peggy’s unaccountable terror at my discovery of her chaunting a
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CHAPTER LVI. ALONE.
CHAPTER LVI. ALONE.
About 4 of the afternoon my father, who had lain for some hours in a state bordering on stupor, and whose breathing had latterly become harsh and difficult, rose suddenly in his bed and called to me in a strong voice. I was by his side in a moment and lifted him up as he signified I should do. A mortal whiteness was in his face and I saw the end was approaching. “I have no fear,” he said, in a sort of sick ecstasy. “I can be true to myself at the last, thank God! The soul triumphs over the body.
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CHAPTER LVII. A PROMISE.
CHAPTER LVII. A PROMISE.
Clasping thin, nervous fingers, Zyp looked up in my face fearfully. “Have you seen Jason?” “No. Has he come, too?” “He’s gone on before to the mill to seek you.” “God help him! I’ve been out all day. Is it the old trouble, Zyp?” “Oh, Renny, I despair at last! I fought it while I was strong; but now—now.” Her head sunk and she pressed a hand to her bosom again. “What ails you, dear? Zyp, are you ill?” “I don’t know. Something seems to suck at my veins. I have nothing definite. The wretchedness of
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CHAPTER LVIII. THE “SPECTER HOUND.”
CHAPTER LVIII. THE “SPECTER HOUND.”
That night when the flood waters rose to a head was a terrible one for Winton—one ghastly in the extreme for all lost souls whose black destinies guided their footsteps to the mill. Perhaps a terror of being trapped—to what hideous fate, who knows?—somewhere in the tortuous darkness of the building, sent my brother leaping by a mad impulse into the waste uproar of the night. Anyhow, before my confused senses could fully grasp the dread nature of the situation, he had rushed past me, plunged into
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CHAPTER LIX. INTO THE DEPTHS.
CHAPTER LIX. INTO THE DEPTHS.
Momentarily I saw—a black mote in that flickering violet transparency—the figure of Duke as he ran before me bobbing up and down like the shadow of the invisible man. Drawn by a sure instinct, he was heading for the mill, and every nerve must I strain to overtake him, now goaded by fear and triumph to maniacal frenzy. But half the distance was covered when the rain swept down in one blinding sheet, that lashed the gutters into froth a foot high and numbed the soul with its terrific uproar. On I
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CHAPTER LX. WHO KILLED MODRED?
CHAPTER LX. WHO KILLED MODRED?
In the instant of realization, as I stood near, death-stricken, where I had stopped, I felt the whole room shake and tremble as the torrent leaped upon the wheel with a flinging shock, heard a clanking screech rise from the monster as it turned, slowly at first, but quickly gathering speed under the awful pressure; heard one last bubbling scream waver up from the depths and die within the narrow vault; then all sense was whelmed and numbed in the single booming crash of water. Already, indeed, t
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