Various - Stories of Mystery

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And there were other offices performed, of lesser range than these,
before he rose to go. There were cooling mixtures blended for the sick
child; medicines arranged; directions given; and all the items of her
tendance orderly foreseen, and put in pigeon-holes of When and How,
for service.

At last he rose to go. "And now, Mrs. Miller," he said, "I'll come here
at ten in the morning, and see to our patient. She'll be nicely by that
time. And (listen to those brutes in the street!--twelve o'clock,
too--ah! there's the bell), as I was saying, my offence to you being
occasioned by your debt to me, I feel my receipt for your debt should
commence my reparation to you; and I'll bring it to-morrow. Mrs. Miller,
you don't quite come at me--what I mean is--you owe me, under a notice
to quit, three months' rent. Consider that paid in full. I never will
take a cent of it from you,--not a copper. And I take back the notice.
Stay in my house as long as you like; the longer the better. But, up
to this date, your rent's paid. There. I hope you'll have as happy a
Christmas as circumstances will allow, and I mean you shall."

A flush of astonishment, of indefinable emotion, overspread her face.

"Dr. Renton, stop, sir!" He was moving to the door. "Please, sir, _do_
hear me! You are very good--but I can't allow you to--Dr. Renton, we
are able to pay you the rent, and we _will_, and we _must_--here--now.
O, sir, my gratefulness will never fail to you--but here--here--be fair
with me, sir, and _do_ take it."

She had hurried to a chest of drawers, and came back with the letter
which she had rustled apart with eager, trembling hands, and now,
unfolding the single bank-note it had contained, she thrust it into
his fingers as they closed.

"Here, Mrs. Miller,"--she had drawn back with her arms locked on her
bosom, and he stepped forward,--"no, no. This sha'n't be. Come, come,
you must take it back. Good heavens!" He spoke low, but his eyes blazed
in the red glow which broke out on his face, and the crisp note in his
extended hand shook violently at her. "Sooner than take this money from
you, I would perish in the street! What! Do you think I will rob you
of the gift sent you by some one who had a human heart for the distresses
I was aggravating? Sooner than-- Here, take it! O my God! what's this?"

The red glow on his face went out, with this exclamation, in a pallor
like marble, and he jerked back the note to his starting eyes. Globe
Bank--Boston--Fifty Dollars. For a minute he gazed at the motionless
bill in his hand. Then, with his hueless lips compressed, he seized
the blank letter from his astonished tenant, and looked at it, turning
it over and over. Grained letter-paper--gilt-edged--with a favorite
perfume in it. Where's Mrs. Flanagan? Outside the door, sitting on the
top of the stairs, with her apron over her head, crying. Mrs. Flanagan!
Here! In she tumbled, her big feet kicking her skirts before her, and
her eyes and face as red as a beet.

"Mrs. Flanagan, what kind of a looking man gave you this letter at the
door to-night?"

"A-w, Docther Rinton, dawn't ax me!--Bother, an' all, an' sure an' I
cudn't see him wud his fur-r hat, an' he a-ll boondled oop wud his co-at
oop on his e-ars, an' his big han'kershuf smotherin' thuh mouth uv him,
an' sorra a bit uv him tuh be looked at, sehvin' thuh poomple on thuh
ind uv his naws."

"The _what_ on the end of his nose?"

"Thuh poomple, sur."

"What does she mean, Mrs. Miller?" said the puzzled questioner, turning
to his tenant.

"I don't know, sir, indeed," was the reply. "She said that to me, and
I couldn't understand her."

"It's thuh poomple, docther. Dawn't ye knoo? Thuh big, flehmin poomple
oop there." She indicated the locality, by flattening the rude tip of
her own nose with her broad forefinger.

"Oh! the pimple! I have it." So he had. Netty, Netty!

He said nothing, but sat down in a chair, with his bold, white brow
knitted, and the warm tears in his dark eyes.

"You know who sent it, sir, don't you?" asked his wondering tenant,
catching the meaning of all this.

"Mrs. Miller, I do. But I cannot tell you. Take it, now, and use it.
It is doubly yours. There. Thank you."

She had taken it with an emotion in her face that gave a quicker motion
to his throbbing heart. He rose to his feet, hat in hand, and turned
away. The noise of a passing group of roysterers in the street without
came strangely loud into the silence of that room.

"Good night, Mrs. Miller. I'll be here in the morning. Good night."

"Good night, sir. God bless you, sir!"

He turned around quickly. The warm tears in his dark eyes had flowed
on his face, which was pale; and his firm lip quivered.

"I hope He will, Mrs. Miller,--I hope He will. It should have been said
oftener."

He was on the outer threshold. Mrs. Flanagan had, somehow, got there
before him, with a lamp, and he followed her down through the dancing
shadows, with blurred eyes. On the lower landing he stopped to hear
the jar of some noisy wrangle, thick with oaths, from the bar-room.
He listened for a moment, and then turned to the staring stupor of Mrs.
Flanagan's rugged visage.

"Sure, they're at ut, docther, wud a wull," she said, smiling.

"Yes. Mrs. Flanagan, you'll stay up with Mrs. Miller to-night, won't
you?"

"Dade an' I wull, sur."

"That's right. Do. And make her try and sleep, for she must be tired.
Keep up a fire,--not too warm, you understand. There'll be wood and
coal coming to-morrow, and she'll pay you back."

"A-w, docther, dawn't noo!"

"Well, well. And--look here; have you got anything to eat in the house?
Yes; well, take it up stairs. Wake up those two boys, and give them
something to eat. Don't let Mrs. Miller stop you. Make her eat something.
Tell her I said she must. And, first of all, get your bonnet, and go
to that apothecary's,--Flint's,--for a bottle of port wine, for Mrs.
Miller. Hold on. There's the order." (He had a leaf out of his
pocket-book in a minute, and wrote it down.) "Go with this the first
thing. Ring Flint's bell, and he'll wake up. And here's something for
your own Christmas dinner, to-morrow." Out of the roll of bills he drew
one of the tens--Globe Bank--Boston--and gave it to Mrs. Flanagan.

"A-w, dawn't noo, docther."

"Bother! It's for yourself, mind. Take it. There. And now unlock the
door. That's it. Good night, Mrs. Flanagan."

"An' meh thuh Hawly Vurgin hape bless'n's on ye, Docther Rinton, wud
a-ll thuh compliments uv thuh sehzin, for yur thuh--"

He lost the end of Mrs. Flanagan's parting benedictions in the moonlit
street. He did not pause till he was at the door of the oyster-room.
He paused then, to make way for a tipsy company of four, who reeled
out,--the gaslight from the bar-room on the edges of their sodden,
distorted faces,--giving three shouts and a yell, as they slammed the
door behind them.

He pushed after a party that was just entering. They went at once for
a drink to the upper end of the room, where a rowdy crew, with cigars
in their mouths, and liquor in their hands, stood before the bar, in
a knotty wrangle concerning some one who was killed. Where is the
keeper? O, there he is, mixing hot brandy punch for two! Here, you,
sir, go up quietly, and tell Mr. Rollins Dr. Renton wants to see him.
The waiter came back presently to say Mr. Rollins would be right along.
Twenty-five minutes past twelve. Oyster trade nearly over.
Gaudy-curtained booths on the left all empty but two. Oyster-openers
and waiters--three of them in all--nearly done for the night, and two
of them sparring and scuffling behind a pile of oysters on the trough,
with the colored print of the great prize fight between Tom Hyer and
Yankee Sullivan, in a veneered frame above them on the wall. Blower
up from the fire opposite the bar, and stewpans and griddles empty and
idle on the bench beside it, among the unwashed bowls and dishes. Oyster
trade nearly over. Bar still busy.

Here comes Rollins in his shirt-sleeves, with an apron on. Thick-set,
muscular man,--frizzled head, low forehead, sharp, black eyes, flabby
face, with a false, greasy smile on it now, oiling over a curious,
stealthy expression of mingled surprise and inquiry, as he sees his
landlord here at this unusual hour.

"Come in here, Mr. Rollins; I want to speak to you."

"Yes, sir. Jim" (to the waiter), "go and tend bar." They sat down in
one of the booths, and lowered the curtain. Dr. Renton, at one side
of the table within, looking at Rollins, sitting leaning on his folded
arms, at the other side.

"Mr. Rollins, I am told the man who was stabbed here last night is dead.
Is that so?"

"Well, he is, Dr. Renton. Died this afternoon."

"Mr. Rollins, this is a serious matter; what are you going to do about
it?"

"Can't help it, sir. Who's a-goin' to touch _me_? Called in a watchman.
Whole mess of 'em had cut. Who knows 'em? Nobody knows 'em. Man that
was stuck never see the fellers as stuck him in all his life till then.
Didn't know which one of 'em did it. Didn't know nothing. Don't now,
an' never will, 'nless he meets 'em in hell. That's all. Feller's dead,
an' who's a-goin' to touch _me_? Can't do it. Ca-n-'t do it."

"Mr. Rollins," said Dr. Renton, thoroughly disgusted with this man's
brutal indifference, "your lease expires in three days."

"Well, it does. Hope to make a renewal with you, Dr. Renton. Trade's
good here. Shouldn't mind more rent on, if you insist,--hope you
won't,--if it's anything in reason. Promise sollum, I sha'n't have no
more fightin' in here. Couldn't help this. Accidents _will_ happen,
yo' know."

"Mr. Rollins, the case is this: if you didn't sell liquor here, you'd
have no murder done in your place,--murder, sir. That man was murdered.
It's your fault, and it's mine, too. I ought not to have let you the
place for your business. It _is_ a cursed traffic, and you and I ought
to have found it out long ago. _I_ have. I hope _you_ will. Now, I advise
you, as a friend, to give up selling rum for the future; you see what
it comes to,--don't you? At any rate, I will not be responsible for
the outrages that are perpetrated in my building any more,--I will not
have liquor sold here. I refuse to renew your lease. In three days you
must move."

"Dr. Renton, you hurt my feelin's. Now, how would you--"

"Mr. Rollins, I have spoken to you as a friend, and you have no cause
for pain. You must quit these premises when your lease expires. I'm
sorry I can't make you go before that. Make no appeals to me, if you
please. I am fixed. Now, sir, good night."

The curtain was pulled up, and Rollins rolled over to his beloved bar,
soothing his lacerated feelings by swearing like a pirate, while Dr.
Renton strode to the door, and went into the street, homeward.

He walked fast through the magical moonlight, with a strange feeling
of sternness, and tenderness, and weariness, in his mind. In this mood,
the sensation of spiritual and physical fatigue gaining on him, but
a quiet moonlight in all his reveries, he reached his house. He was
just putting his latch-key in the door, when it was opened by James,
who stared at him for a second, and then dropped his eyes, and put his
hand before his nose. Dr. Renton compressed his lips on an involuntary
smile.

"Ah! James, you're up late. It's near one."

"I sat up for Mrs. Renton and the young lady, sir. They're just come,
and gone up stairs."

"All right, James. Take your lamp and come in here. I've got something
to say to you." The man followed him into the library at once, with
some wonder on his sleepy face.

"First, put some coal on that fire, and light the chandelier. I shall
not go up stairs to-night." The man obeyed. "Now, James, sit down in
that chair." He did so, beginning to look frightened at Dr. Renton's
grave manner.

"James,"--a long pause,--"I want you to tell me the truth. Where did
you go to-night? Come, I have found you out. Speak."

The man turned as white as a sheet, and looked wretched with the whites
of his bulging eyes, and the great pimple on his nose awfully distinct
in the livid hue of his features. He was a rather slavish fellow, and
thought he was going to lose his situation. Please not to blame him,
for he, too, was one of the poor.

"O Dr. Renton, excuse me, sir; I didn't mean doing any harm."

"James, my daughter gave you an undirected letter this evening; you
carried it to one of my houses in Hanover Street. Is that true?"

"Ye-yes, sir. I couldn't help it. I only did what she told me, sir."

"James, if my daughter told you to set fire to this house, what would
you do?"

"I wouldn't do it, sir," he stammered, after some hesitation.

"You wouldn't? James, if my daughter ever tells you to set fire to this
house, do it, sir! Do it. At once. Do whatever she tells you. Promptly.
And I'll back you."

The man stared wildly at him, as he received this astonishing command.
Dr. Renton was perfectly grave, and had spoken slowly and seriously.
The man was at his wits' end.

"You'll do it, James,--will you?"

"Ye-yes, sir, certainly."

"That's right. James, you're a good fellow. James, you've got a wife
and children, hav'n't you?"

"Yes, sir, I have; living in the country, sir. In Chelsea, over the
ferry. For cheapness, sir."

"For cheapness, eh? Hard times, James? How is it?"

"Pretty hard, sir. Close, but toler'ble comfortable. Rub and go, sir."

"Rub and go. Ve-r-y well. Rub and go. James, I'm going to raise your
wages--to-morrow. Generally, because you're a good servant.
Principally, because you carried that letter to-night, when my
daughter asked you. I sha'n't forget it. To-morrow, mind. And if I can
do anything for you, James, at any time, just tell me. That's all. Now,
you'd better go to bed. And a happy Christmas to you!"

"Much obliged to you, sir. Same to you and many of 'em. Good night,
sir." And with Dr. Renton's "good-night" he stole up to bed, thoroughly
happy, and determined to obey Miss Renton's future instructions to the
letter. The shower of golden light which had been raining for the last
two hours had fallen even on him. It would fall all day to-morrow in
many places, and the day after, and for long years to come. Would that
it could broaden and increase to a general deluge, and submerge the
world!

Now the whole house was still, and its master was weary. He sat there,
quietly musing, feeling the sweet and tranquil presence near him. Now
the fire was screened, the lights were out, save one dim glimmer, and
he had lain down on the couch with the letter in his hand, and slept
the dreamless sleep of a child.

He slept until the gray dawn of Christmas day stole into the room, and
showed him the figure of his friend, a shape of glorious light, standing
by his side, and gazing at him with large and tender eyes! He had no
fear. All was deep, serene, and happy with the happiness of heaven.
Looking up into that beautiful, wan face,--so tranquil,--so radiant;
watching, with a childlike awe, the star-fire in those shadowy eyes;
smiling faintly, with a great, unutterable love thrilling slowly
through his frame, in answer to the smile of light that shone upon the
phantom countenance; so he passed a space of time which seemed a calm
eternity, till, at last, the communion of spirit with spirit--of mortal
love with love immortal--was perfected, and the shining hands were laid
on his forehead, as with a touch of air. Then the phantom smiled, and,
as its shining hands were withdrawn, the thought of his daughter
mingled in the vision. She was bending over him! The dawn, the room,
were the same. But the ghost of Feval had gone out from earth, away
to its own land!

"Father, dear father! Your eyes were open, and they did not look at
me. There is a light on your face, and your features are changed! What
is it,--what have you seen?"

"Hush, darling: here--kneel by me, for a little while, and be still.
I have seen the dead."

She knelt by him, burying her awe-struck face in his bosom, and clung
to him with all the fervor of her soul. He clasped her to his breast,
and for minutes all was still.

"Dear child, good and dear child!"

The voice was tremulous and low. She lifted her fair, bright
countenance, now convulsed with a secret trouble, and dimmed with
streaming tears, to his, and gazed on him. His eyes were shining; but
his pallid cheeks, like hers, were wet with tears. How still the room
was! How like a thought of solemn tenderness the pale gray dawn! The
world was far away, and his soul still wandered in the peaceful awe
of his dream. The world was coming back to him,--but oh! how
changed!--in the trouble of his daughter's face.

"Darling, what is it? Why are you here? Why are you weeping? Dear child,
the friend of my better days,--of the boyhood when I had noble aims,
and life was beautiful before me,--he has been here! I have seen him.
He has been with me--oh! for a good I cannot tell!"

"Father, dear father!"--he had risen, and sat upon the couch, but she
still knelt before him, weeping, and clasped his hands in hers,--"I
thought of you and of this letter, all the time. All last night till
I slept, and then I dreamed you were tearing it to pieces, and trampling
on it. I awoke, and lay thinking of you, and of ----. And I thought
I heard you come down stairs, and I came here to find you. But you were
lying here so quietly, with your eyes open, and so strange a light on
your face. And I knew,--I knew you were dreaming of him, and that you
saw him, for the letter lay beside you. O father! forgive me, but do
hear me! In the name of this day,--it's Christmas day, father,--in the
name of the time when we must both die,--in the name of that time, father,
hear me! That poor woman last night,--O father! forgive me, but don't
tear that letter in pieces and trample it under foot! You know what
I mean--you know--you know. Don't tear it, and tread it under foot."

She clung to him, sobbing violently, her face buried in his hands.

"Hush, hush! It's all well,--it's all well. Here, sit by me. So. I
have--" His voice failed him, and he paused. But sitting by
him,--clinging to him,--her face hidden in his bosom,--she heard the
strong beating of his disenchanted heart.

"My child, I know your meaning. I will not tear the letter to pieces
and trample it under foot. God forgive me my life's slight to those
words. But I learned their value last night, in the house where your
blank letter had entered before me."

She started, and looked into his face steadfastly, while a bright
scarlet shot into her own.

"I know all, Netty,--all. Your secret was well kept, but it is yours
and mine now. It was well done, darling, well done. O, I have been
through strange mysteries of thought and life since that starving woman
sat here! Well--thank God!"

"Father, what have you done?" The flush had failed, but a glad color
still brightened her face, while the tears stood trembling in her eyes.

"All that you wished yesterday," he answered. "And all that you ever
could have wished, henceforth I will do."

"O father!" She stopped. The bright scarlet shot again into her face,
but with an April shower of tears, and the rainbow of a smile.

"Listen to me, Netty, and I will tell you, and only you, what I have
done." Then while she mutely listened, sitting by his side, and the
dawn of Christmas broadened into Christmas day, he told her all.

And when he had told all, and emotion was stilled, they sat together
in silence for a time, she with her innocent head drooped upon his
shoulder, and her eyes closed, lost in tender and mystic reveries; and
he musing with a contrite heart. Till at last, the stir of daily life
began to waken in the quiet dwelling, and without, from steeples in
the frosty air, there was a sound of bells.

They rose silently, and stood, clinging to each other, side by side.

"Love, we must part," he said, gravely and tenderly. "Read me, before
we go, the closing lines of George Feval's letter. In the spirit of
this let me strive to live. Let it be for me the lesson of the day.
Let it also be the lesson of my life."

Her face was pale and lit with exaltation as she took the letter from
his hand. There was a pause, and then upon the thrilling and tender
silver of her voice, the words arose like solemn music:--

"_Farewell--farewell! But, oh! take my counsel into memory on
Christmas Day, and forever. Once again, the ancient prophecy of peace
and good-will shines on a world of wars and wrongs and woes. Its soft
ray shines into the darkness of a land wherein swarm slaves, poor
laborers, social pariahs, weeping women, homeless exiles, hunted
fugitives, despised aliens, drunkards, convicts, wicked children, and
Magdalens unredeemed. These are but the ghastliest figures in that sad
army of humanity which advances, by a dreadful road, to the Golden Age
of the poets' dream. These are your sisters and your brothers. Love
them all. Beware of wronging one of them by word or deed. O friend!
strong in wealth for so much good,--take my last counsel. In the name
of the Saviour, I charge you, be true and tender to mankind. Come out
from Babylon into manhood, and live and labor for the fallen, the
neglected, the suffering, and the poor. Lover of arts, customs, laws,
institutions, and forms of society, love these things only as they help
mankind! With stern love, overturn them, or help to overturn them, when
they become cruel to a single--the humblest--human being. In the
world's scale, social position, influence, public power, the applause
of majorities, heaps of funded gold, services rendered to creeds, codes,
sects, parties, or federations--they weigh weight; but in God's
scale--remember!--on the day of hope, remember!--your least service
to Humanity outweighs them all._"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS.

BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.

I.

The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and ten
years ago. Sebastopol had fallen in the early spring; the peace of Paris
had been concluded since March; our commercial relations with the
Russian Empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning home after
my first northward journey since the war, was well pleased with the
prospect of spending the month of December under the hospitable and
thoroughly English roof of my excellent friend Jonathan Jelf, Esquire,
of Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia. Travelling in the
interests of the well-known firm in which it is my lot to be a junior
partner, I had been called upon to visit not only the capitals of Russia
and Poland, but had found it also necessary to pass some weeks among
the trading-ports of the Baltic; whence it came that the year was
already far spent before I again set foot on English soil, and that,
instead of shooting pheasants with him, as I had hoped, in October,
I came to be my friend's guest during the more genial Christmastide.

My voyage over, and a few days given up to business in Liverpool and
London, I hastened down to Clayborough with all the delight of a
school-boy whose holidays are at hand. My way lay by the Great East
Anglian line as far as Clayborough station, where I was to be met by
one of the Dumbleton carriages and conveyed across the remaining nine
miles of country. It was a foggy afternoon, singularly warm for the
4th of December, and I had arranged to leave London by the 4.15 express.
The early darkness of winter had already closed in; the lamps were
lighted in the carriages; a clinging damp dimmed the windows, adhered
to the door-handles, and pervaded all the atmosphere; while the
gas-jets at the neighboring bookstand diffused a luminous haze that
only served to make the gloom of the terminus more visible. Having
arrived some seven minutes before the starting of the train, and, by
the connivance of the guard, taken sole possession of an empty
compartment, I lighted my travelling-lamp, made myself particularly
snug, and settled down to the undisturbed enjoyment of a book and a
cigar. Great, therefore, was my disappointment when, at the last moment,
a gentleman came hurrying along the platform, glanced into my carriage,
opened the locked door with a private key, and stepped in.

It struck me at the first glance that I had seen him before,--a tall,
spare man, thin-lipped, light-eyed, with an ungraceful stoop in the
shoulders, and scant gray hair worn somewhat long upon the collar. He
carried a light water-proof coat, an umbrella, and a large brown
japanned deed-box, which last he placed under the seat. This done, he
felt carefully in his breast-pocket, as if to make certain of the safety
of his purse or pocket-book; laid his umbrella in the netting overhead;
spread the water-proof across his knees; and exchanged his hat for a
travelling-cap of some Scotch material. By this time the train was
moving out of the station, and into the faint gray of the wintry
twilight beyond.

I now recognized my companion. I recognized him from the moment when
he removed his hat and uncovered the lofty, furrowed, and somewhat
narrow brow beneath. I had met him, as I distinctly remembered, some
three years before, at the very house for which, in all probability,
he was now bound, like myself. His name was Dwerrihouse; he was a lawyer
by profession; and, if I was not greatly mistaken, was first-cousin
to the wife of my host. I knew also that he was a man eminently "well
to do," both as regarded his professional and private means. The Jelfs
entertained him with that sort of observant courtesy which falls to
the lot of the rich relation; the children made much of him; and the
old butler, albeit somewhat surly "to the general," treated him with
deference. I thought, observing him by the vague mixture of lamplight
and twilight, that Mrs. Jelf's cousin looked all the worse for the three
years' wear and tear which had gone over his head since our last meeting.
He was very pale, and had a restless light in his eye that I did not
remember to have observed before. The anxious lines, too, about his
mouth were deepened, and there was a cavernous, hollow look about his
cheeks and temples which seemed to speak of sickness or sorrow. He had
glanced at me as he came in, but without any gleam of recognition in
his face. Now he glanced again, as I fancied, somewhat doubtfully. When
he did so for the third or fourth time, I ventured to address him.

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