University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH
THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

The old man drew the bolt, and the back panel of the closet opened
like a door. Light in hand, he peered across the gloomy threshold, the
rays streaming over his shoulders, and marking his figure in a bold relief
against the darkness.

“A door cut through the thick stone wall into the Haunted House!” he
muttered, and crossed the threshold.

Betsy as if driven to the last extremity of despair, uttered a groan,—a
muttered prayer in German—and the old man thoroughly steeled against
her groans and prayers, closed the door after him, and secured it by a bolt,
which glided into the thickness of the wall.

“She's prayin'—” he murmured, listening at the panel—“What in the
deuce is the matter with the good woman?”

Raising the light, he examined the features of the place. There are
certain faces, which strike you at first sight with an inexplicable feeling,
which mingles terror the most instinctive with fascination the most irresistible.

You hate such a face at first sight, and yet cannot turn your
eyes away from it. It suggests at once the idea of some terrible crime,
or of suffering too deep for tears.

So in the depths of the forest, where withered leaves give their harsh
echo to your lonely tread, and gloomy pines shuts out the daylight from
your face, you sometimes chance upon a scene that fills you with the
same indescribable emotion of mingled terror and fascination. This scene
may be a lonely pool sunken in the hollow of herbless rocks, and looking
as if the foot of man had never profaned its solitude—it may be a cavern,
hollow and vast, and agitated with the murmurs of dripping water—it
may be a grassy glade in the thick woods, full of herbage and flowers, and
yet so terribly still, so utterly isolated; without the hum of a bee to break
its stillness, or the mark of a footprint to disturb its profound loneliness.

Still in every case this scene of nature makes its mark upon your soul;
leaves there forever a sensation of fascination combined with terror.

If there are faces—if there are scenes in wild nature—that possess this
singular power, so it has often seemed to me, there are chambers in old
and deserted mansions that have a character all their own; that strike you
at once with a shudder and a joy; that pervade your whole being with
the memory of a vivid pleasure and the dim consciousness of a hideous
crime.

It was a chamber such as this, in which the old man stood lifting the
candle above his head.

It was wide and spacious. The ceiling was lofty; the walls panelled
with sombre wood. Along the window,—looking perchance into the
garden—hung curtains of rich texture and purple dye. The hearth was
broad and roomy, and above extended the mantle, adorned with a thousand
intricate carvings.

Such were the general outlines of the place, and yet it impressed the
heart of the gazer, with that mingled feeling—a shuddering fear, an overwhelming
fascination.

Had the thousand figures sculptured on the panelled walls, dusky now
with dust and time ever witnessed scenes of misery—of crime—enacted
upon the glittering mahogany floor? Had the lofty ceiling ever echoed
the shrieks of outraged maidenhood, or the last, low, gurgling groan of
life—life snapt in twain by the hand of Murder? That fire place so
broad and roomy,—how many scenes had its fires lighted in days bygone,
how many happy faces had clustered in its glow,—faces of the Child too
new from Heaven to know Sin, of the Maiden just palpitating into Love,
of the Aged waiting with gray hairs, and sluggish blood for Death to come
and chill them into dust!

Thoughts like these steal on the mind in one of those ancient chambers
of a deserted home. It seemed to the awed intruder upon this silent
place, as if the isolated room—bit with memories—had a Soul.

The old man looked silently about the place, while the candle held
aloft in his right arm, cast its rays over his long, white hair, and beard
waving on his breast: over his tall frame, clad in beggar's rags, and made
a circle of light around him, leaving all beside in twilight obscurity.

“I have seen a Face, which reminds me of this room!” he said—and
started at the sound of his voice.

The Face which he remembered had a terror also, for he trembled as
he spoke of it, although his eyes grew more vivid in their light.

“This is the place,” he said, “The very room of which poor Adam
spoke as he died in my arms. `I had thought to take advantage of it myself'
he said,—how his white lips quivered, as the words were uttered
with his passing breath! `but I'll never see home agin'. Then he gave
me this paper, and says he, `if Betsy's alive be kind to her—don't let her
come to want, comrade, or I'll haunt you, by —!' About an hour
after that he died.”

The old man placed the light upon the mantel, and held before its rays
the slip of paper, which he so anxiously perused not many minutes before.
It was dingy and worn as though it had been handled many a time by
rough fingers, and the characters traced upon it, were written in a bold
yet rugged hand. The words which it bore were few,—without comma
or period—and to all appearance without a meaning.

“Under the Harp,” murmured the old man, passing around the room
light in hand, and examining with a keen glance the carvings which
adorned the panels: “Here are angels and devils, and all sorts of odd images
cut in black wood, but as for a Harp—hey? Let's see? Nothing
o' th' kind here,—nor here—zounds! I must have mistook the room.”

He traversed the room many times, not only perusing the panels as
though they were the leaves of some precious book, but carefully examining
the figures carved upon the mantel-piece, and raising the candle
above his head, as he attentively surveyed the ceiling. His search was
however in vain.

Nothing like the figure of a Harp met his gaze.

“Yet Adam believed in it; a straight story, too, and told just before he
died. If I find it—if the story is true—if—if—curses upon that if!”

He clenched his right hand, pressed his nether lip between his teeth,
and muttered an oath as he glided on tip-toe along the dusky floor.

“If! Then I may escape, yes escape from this—”

He paused; the words died on his tongue, as though a sudden memory
had frozen his utterance. Trembling—writhing in every nerve—his face

distorted and his eyes sunken in their sockets—he seemed to struggle and
struggle in all the bitterness of despair, with a more than mortal anguish.

“What ray of hope? Not one—not one! Like a man buried alive,
I feel the coffin lid upon my breast, but cannot move.”

He placed the light upon the mantel, and covered his face with his
hands.

We may not picture the full agony of that moment, nor reveal the
cause of the old man's measureless woe! Scalding tears were on his
cheeks—with a curse he dashed them away, and raised his flashing eyes
toward the light.

“I must be gone. I must leave this place. There is work for me,—a
dog's work and a devil's wages!”

Turning away, his eye was arrested even as he raised the light, by a
small hook which projected from the panel above the mantel. There was
a belt suspended from this hook, a belt of many dyes, whose vivid contrasts
glared upon him from the dark background of the wainscot. He
seized the belt with an eager gesture; he held it to the light; it needed
no second glance to ascertain its use and purpose.