“You must not begin your new life without money, Richard: I shall, therefore, give you all I have in the house. I think I cannot better show my confidence in you, and my certainty that you will not return to your old habits, than by giving you this money.” Richard looks—he cannot speak his gratitude.
The old man conducts his nephew upstairs to his bedroom, an old-fashioned apartment, in one window of which is a handsome cabinet, half desk, half bureau. He unlocks this, and takes from it a pocketbook containing one hundred and thirty-odd pounds in small notes and gold, and two bills for one hundred pounds each on an Anglo-Indian bank in the city.
“Take this, Richard. Use the broken cash as you require it for present purposes—in purchasing such an outfit as becomes my nephew; and on your arrival in Gardenford, place the bills in the bank for future exigencies. And as I wish your mother to know nothing of our little plan until you are gone, the best thing you can do is to start before anyone is up—tomorrow morning.”
“I will start at daybreak. I can leave a note for my mother.”
“No, no,” said the uncle, “I will tell her all. You can write directly you reach your destination. Now, you will think it cruel of me to ask you to leave your home on the very night of your return to it; but it is quite as well, my dear boy, to strike while the iron’s hot. If you remain here your good resolutions may be vanquished by old influences; for the best resolution, Richard, is but a seed, and if it doesn’t bear the fruit of a good action, it is less than worthless, for it is a lie, and promises what it doesn’t perform. I’ve a higher opinion of you than to think that you brought no better fruit of your penitence home to your loving mother than empty resolutions. I believe you have a steady determination to reform.”
“You only do me justice in that belief, sir. I ask nothing better than the opportunity of showing that I am in earnest.”
Mr. Harding is quite satisfied, and once more suggests that Richard should depart very early the next day.
“I will leave this house at five in the morning,” said the nephew; “a train starts for Gardenford about six. I shall creep out quietly, and not disturb anyone. I know the way out of the dear old house—I can get out of the drawing-room window, and need not unlock the hall-door; for I know that good stupid old woman Martha sleeps with the key under her pillow.”
“Ah, by the by, where does Martha mean to put you tonight?”
“In the little back-parlour, I think she said; the room under this.”
The uncle and nephew went down to this little parlour, where they found old Martha making up a bed on the sofa.
“You will sleep very comfortably here for tonight, Master Richard,” said the old woman; “but if my mistress doesn’t have this ceiling mended before long there’ll be an accident some day.”
They all looked up at the ceiling. The plaster had fallen in several places, and there were one or two cracks of considerable size.
“If it was daylight,” grumbled the old woman, “you could see through into Mister Harding’s bedroom, for his worship won’t have a carpet.”
His worship said he had not been used to carpets in India, and liked the sight of Mrs. Martha’s snow-white boards.
“And it’s hard to keep them white, sir, I can tell you; for when I scour the floor of that room the water runs through and spoils the furniture down here.”
But Daredevil Dick didn’t seem to care much for the dilapidated ceiling. The madeira, his brightened prospects, and the excitement he had gone through, all combined to make him thoroughly wearied out. He shook his uncle’s hand with a brief but energetic expression of gratitude, and then flung himself half dressed upon the bed.
“There is an alarm clock in my room,” said the old man, “which I will set for five o’clock. I always sleep with my door open; so you will be sure to hear it go down. It won’t disturb your mother, for she sleeps at the other end of the house. And now good night, and God bless you, my boy!”
He is gone, and the returned prodigal is asleep. His handsome face has lost half its look of dissipation and care, in the renewed light of hope; his black hair is tossed off his broad forehead, and it is a fine candid countenance, with a sweet smile playing round the mouth. Oh, there is stuff in him to make a man yet, though he says they should hang such fellows as he!
His uncle has retired to his room, where his half-caste servant assists at his toilette for the night. This servant, who is a Lascar, and cannot speak one word of English (his master converses with him in Hindostanee), and is thought to be as faithful as a dog, sleeps in a little bed in the dressing-room adjoining his master’s apartment.
So, on this bad November night, with the wind howling round the walls as if it were an angry unadmitted guest that clamoured to come in; with the rain beating on the roof, as if it had a special purpose and was bent on flooding the old house; there is peace and happiness, and a returned and penitent wanderer at the desolate old Black Mill.
The wind this night seems to howl with a peculiar significance, but nobody has the key to its strange language; and if, in every shrill dissonant shriek, it tries to tell a ghastly secret or to give a timely warning, it tries in vain, for no one heeds or understands.
III
The Usher Washes His Hands
Mr. Jabez North had not his little room quite to himself at Dr. Tappenden’s. There are some penalties attendant even on
