He thinks she will be sorry. What has been the story of her life but one long thought and care for him, in which her every sorrow and her every joy have taken their colour from joys and sorrows of his?
While they are talking, Jabez comes in, and, seating himself on a low stool by the bed, talks to the sick man.
“And so,” says Jim, looking him full in the face with a curious glance—“so you’re my brother—the old woman’s told me all about it—my twin brother; so like me, that it’s quite a treat to look at you. It’s like looking in a glass, and that’s a luxury I’ve never been accustomed to. Light a candle, lass; I want to see my brother’s face.”
His brother was against the lighting of the candle—it might hurt the eyes of the sufferer, he suggested; but Jim repeated his request, and the girl obeyed.
“Now come here and hold the candle, lass, and hold it close to my brother’s face, for I want to have a good look at him.”
Mr. Jabez North seemed scarcely to relish the unflinching gaze of his newly-found relation; and again those fine blue eyes for which he was distinguished, winked and shifted, and hid themselves, under the scrutiny of the sick man.
“It’s a handsome face,” said Jim; “and it looks like the face of one of your fine highborn gentlemen too, which is rather queer, considering who it belongs to; but for all that, I can’t say it’s a face I much care about. There’s something under—something behind the curtain. I say, brother, you’re hatching of some plot tonight, and a very deep-laid plot it is too, or my name isn’t Jim Lomax.”
“Poor fellow,” murmured the compassionate Jabez, “his mind wanders sadly.”
“Does it?” asked the sick man; “does my mind wander, lad? I hope it does; I hope I can’t see very clear tonight, for I didn’t want to think my own brother a villain. I don’t want to think bad of thee, lad, if it’s only for my dead mother’s sake.”
“You hear!” said Jabez, with a glance of appeal to the girl, “you hear how delirious he is?”
“Stop a bit, lad,” cried Jim, with sudden energy, laying his wasted hand upon his brother’s wrist; “stop a bit. I’m dying fast; and before it’s too late I’ve one prayer to make. I haven’t made so many either to God or man that I need forget this one. You see this lass; we’ve been sweethearts, I don’t know how long, now—ever since she was a little toddling thing that I could carry on my shoulder; and, one of these days, when wages got to be better, and bread cheaper, and hopes brighter, somehow, for poor folks like us, we was to have been married; but that’s over now. Keep a good heart, lass, and don’t look so white; perhaps it’s better as it is. Well, as I was saying, we’ve been sweethearts for a many year, and often when I haven’t been able to get work, maybe sometimes when I haven’t been willing, when I’ve been lazy, or on the drink, or among bad companions, this lass has kept a shelter over me, and given me bread to eat with the labour of her own hands. She’s been true to me. I could tell you how true, but there’s something about the corners of your mouth that makes me think you wouldn’t care to hear it. But if you want me to die in peace, promise me this—that as long as you’ve got a shilling she shall never be without a sixpence; that as long as you’ve got a roof to cover your head she shall never be without a shelter. Promise!”
He tightened his grasp convulsively upon his brother’s wrist. That gentleman made an effort to look him full in the face; but not seeming to relish the searching gaze of the dying man’s eyes, Mr. Jabez North was compelled to drop his own.
“Come,” said Jim; “promise—swear to me, by all you hold sacred, that you’ll do this.”
“I swear!” said Jabez, solemnly.
“And if you break your oath,” added his brother, “never come anigh the place where I’m buried, for I’ll rise out of my grave and haunt you.”
The dying man fell back exhausted on his pillow. The girl poured out some medicine and gave it to him, while Jabez walked to the door, and looked up at the sky.
A very dark sky for a night in June. A wide black canopy hung over the earth, and as yet there was not one feeble star to break the inky darkness. A threatening night—the low murmuring of whose sultry wind moaned and whispered prophecies of a coming storm. Never had the blindness of Blind Peter been darker than tonight. You could scarcely see your hand before you. A wretched woman who had just fetched half-a-quartern of gin from the nearest public-house, though a denizen of the place, and familiar with every broken flagstone and crumbling brick, stumbled over her own threshold, and spilt a portion of the precious liquid.
It would have been difficult to imagine either the heavens or the earth under a darker aspect in the month of June. Not so, however, thought Mr. Jabez North; for, after contemplating the sky for some moments in silence, he exclaimed—“A fine night! A glorious night! It could not be better!”
A figure, one shade darker than the night, came between him and the darkness. It was the doctor, who said—
“Well, sir, I’m glad you think it a fine night; but I must beg to differ with you on the subject, for I never remember seeing a blacker sky, or one that threatened a more terrible storm at this season of the year.”
“I was scarcely thinking of what I was saying, doctor. That poor man in there—”
“Ah, yes; poor fellow! I doubt if he’ll witness the storm, near as it seems to
