University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
THE LONG WATCH OVER.

There were three palpable results of this fresh catastrophe
in the Rawle family. Angie went home to her
father, Margery sank into a nonentity, Hannah ruled the
house. There was no motive for Angie's further continuance
at the cottage, nor did Margery remonstrate, even
by a look, when she said, “I will carry our bed up
stairs; you will not mind sleeping with her now (pointing
to Hannah); I will go home to-night.” The period
of watching and suspense was over, that of endurance
simply was begun. So long as they were peering
into each night's darkness in expectation of catching
some glimpse of the fugitive, so long as they fancied
they heard his cry in every whistle of the night wind,
they had instinctively looked to each other for aid in
some possible emergency; but now that he lay stiff,
stark, and still, now that he had surrendered himself to
the last enemy, Death, all lesser powers were disbanded,
and the long watch was over. Margery felt
that henceforth she could lie down by the side of Hannah,

— of Hannah, the avenger still, in heart, but the
avenger disarmed. Angie realized that the necessity for
coöperation between herself and Margery was past; that
their suffering would be none the less mutual because
endured apart, and that her only rightful place was
home.

Home! word of so much meaning to the happy! of so
much more to the miserable! The place where the
highest joy is concentrated! the corner in which the
deepest grief may hide! the garden where Innocence
sports in the sunshine! the only shady spot in which
Remorse can find a grave!

Poor Angie! A little while ago so bright, so beautiful,
so gay a thing, it seems hard to consign her thus to
a dreary tomb. But to the heart crushed out of life, the
hopes annihilated, the soul given over to contrition and
despair, what is there left but burial? For a while we
must leave her then to solitude, darkness, and the undying
worm.

And Margery! O mothers, pity her! Sometimes she
went wandering round the house, with that strange restlessness
which no change of place can satisfy, no bodily
weariness exhaust. Sometimes she sat gazing at one
spot for hours, her hands, — O, who does not know
the expression of grief-struck hands? — no tongue can
tell to those whom sorrow has not initiated, — no eye
but that of sympathy can detect that mute holding
on to each other on the part of despairing hands. It
is the silent griefs that hide thus between the palms;

and Margery's grief, from first to last, was dumb.
Those continual complaints, those long-drawn sighs,
those self-pitying ejaculations which had been her distinguishing
characteristic, had all died into the still
depth of an unbroken silence. Whether it were caution,
or fear, or the very paralysis of despair, her lips
henceforth refused the common utterances of sorrow;
her bosom heaved no groans; the “O dears!” and the
“Ah, me's!” of her former life had shrunk dismayed
from the presence of a blasting woe.

Only sympathy could comprehend this, and Hannah
Rawle possessed no such spiritual talisman. Hannah
was a strong woman. Well might she be. Her nature
was one of those that find vent for themselves, and she
had never been chafed and worn away in any vital part
by emotions that gnaw inwardly and sap the life. Her
grief at her husband's death had half exploded already
in fierce invectives and threats against his murderers,
and in like manner her vexation, for such it might
well be termed, at George's wretched fate, was destined
to find an outlet in alternate reproaches of the poor
youth and regret at his untimely end. She put a constraint
upon herself, indeed, during the minister's visit,
which was brief. She didn't want any of his consolation,
she said. She'd had enough of it. But henceforward
she officiated, both outwardly and in her own estimation,
as head of the household and chief mourner. Not
that she put on mourning, as the saying is, or claimed
the commiseration of the neighborhood. Far from it.

Nobody wore mourning for Baultie or Geordie either.
Their relations were all too poor, too niggardly, or too
primitive for that. Neither did Hannah crave any body's
pity, nor tolerate visits of condolence, which, fortunately,
few persons dreamed of paying. But it was she alone,
who, from this time, presumed to lift the veil which was
suffered to rest upon the past. She alone ventured to
compare what was, with what had, or might have been,
and lament the bitterness of the household lot; thus performing,
after a fashion, her share, and, as she believed,
more than her share, of the mourning; an office which
did not prevent her also usurping the direction of affairs,
and by her own native force of character, taking immediate
precedence of Margery in all things pertaining to
their mutual welfare.

“Of course, as things has turned out so misfortunate,
I shall jest keep on here 'long with Margery,” was her
mental resolve. “Margery 's a poor, weak critter!
Only look at her now, potterin' round as if she was
tryin' to hunt up her scattered wits. She's a poor,
broken-down thing, an' don't more'n half know what
she's about. Why, she's acted as if she was afeard
fur her life ever since they killed my old man, till now;
an' now she don't seem to have life enough left in her
to feel any great struck up about Geordie. Why, I've
seen her take on wuss when the potatoes got scorched
agin the bottom o' the pot in the bilin'. It's lucky
Geordie 's got me to grieve for him” (and a great
involuntary tear rolling down her cheek testified to the

sincerity with which she fulfilled her office, for Hannah,
whose stern, reserved nature allied her to but few, had
really loved the lad), — “yes, it's lucky he's got one raal
mourner, for his mother hain't got sperit enough to feel
any o' the shame or sorrer that she ought ter on his
account, an' the gal seems as cool as a cowcumber too,
considerin' she an' Geordie 's been sparkin' together this
dozen year.”

Margery's helplessness and inefficiency being assumed,
end Hannah's prerogative unquestioned from the first, it
naturally devolved on the latter to receive and act upon
her brother Dick's report of the result of his painful
investigations into the fact of George's death, with all
the attendant circumstances, so far as they were revealed,
— such as the identification of the body, the time, manner,
and place of the event, and its probable motive and
cause.

With respect to the last point only could there be any
opportunity for doubt or discussion. The rest resolved
itself into a series of statements sufficiently proved, and
leaving no ground for further inquiry or hope.

“It's him? — you've seen him? — he's dead, then? —
it's all true?”

Each of these questions was responded to by a confirmatory
nod on the part of Van Hausen, — solemn, awful
nods, — a stroke of fate each. Perhaps it was dread of
the effect of his communication; perhaps it was the
natural reticence of a man who had looked on things
unutterable; possibly it was merely because Hannah,

who had put the questions, was keen-eyed and dull of
ear, that he nodded and did not speak. He had come in
just at dusk, leaving the horse, on which he had ridden
to and from the city, since morning, saddled outside. He
had laid a clumsy bundle on the table as he entered, and
had seated himself in a chair close against the wall.

Hannah groaned aloud; Margery, seemingly playing the
second part, only looked and listened in her vacant way.
Angie, who had purposely delayed going home until after
Van Hausen's anxiously expected visit, but who dreaded
to encounter him face to face, gazed tremblingly out
from the corner of a dark passage in the cellar-way,
where she had taken refuge on his entrance.

So much had already been comprehended in Hannah's
brief questions and Van Hausen's nods, that it seemed for
a moment as if there was nothing more to ask or answer.
Van Hausen took advantage of the pause to feel in his
pocket for a second parcel, rise, and lay it beside the
larger bundle on the table, and then sit down again. All
eyes followed him, and fastened themselves on the table,
burdened as it was with these sad trophies.

“His things?” murmured Hannah.

Dick nodded again.

Margery rose, went to the table, and bent over it.

“Where did he jump off?” was Hannah's next bald
question.

Dick shook his head from side to side, intimating that
he didn't know.

Margery had meanwhile untied the silk handkerchief, —

George's handkerchief, — in which the well-known coat,
— his coat, was wrapped. Now she drew the outer edges
of the handkerchief slowly between her thumb and forefinger,
as if measuring it, length and breadth; then unfolded
the coat, and one after another, passed the palm
of her hand gently over each of its great silver buttons, —
ancestral buttons, — the only relic of old Hans' prosperity
that fell to Margery's share. How often she had polished
them for Sundays! How sadly the tarnished things
needed it now!

Then she let the coat drop suddenly from her hands,
as if, burdened with a weight of memories, it had proved
too heavy for her to hold; but she still hovered over the
table. They all watched her. Angie leaned forward
from the cellar-way, in the rear of Dick's chair; — with
one shrinking eye on him, she strained the other in the
direction of Margery.

The poor mother had taken fresh courage, had convulsively
unfolded the lesser parcel, and was examining its
contents.

“His watch?” asked Hannah of her brother, as Margery
grasped the rusty silver time-piece, and the heavy-linked
chain and old-fashioned seal rattled with a familiar
click, — familiar to the mother's ear long before
the younger George was born (for the watch had been
his father's, — the family heirloom on the Rawle side).

The question was responded to by another assenting
nod from Dick, who, rising, laid his finger impressively
on the face of the watch, the rusty hands of which still

pointed out the hour — half-past two. They all shuddered;
they knew that that was the hour which had
sounded George's death-knell.

It was more than the poor mother could bear to look
upon. She closed one hand over the watch, jealously
hiding it, even from her own eyes. Perhaps she dreaded,
lest the thing which had once seemed endowed with life,
and still had power to reveal a truth, might speak out
and betray all. However that might be, she clutched it
instinctively, gathered up the coat and handkerchief in
her feeble, trembling arms, and, without waiting for any
further revelation, crept from the room, and went tottering
with her burdens up the narrow stairway to George's
attic, there to hide these new tokens of her misery in the
place where they had once belonged.

Van Hausen drew a long breath when she had gone. His
tongue seemed loosened too. Rough-grained as he might
be, his childlike simplicity of heart interpreted Margery's
condition more truly than Hannah, or even the dominie,
had interpreted it. Touched, as the friends of Job were by
the greatness of his calamity, he had not ventured to speak
a word unto her, for he saw that her grief was very great.

“What a day's work this has been for a man!” he
exclaimed, when she had gone. “Thank God, it's about
over.”

“Was he much changed?” inquired Hannah, who did
not hear her brother's exclamation; but who, in the
greater license afforded by Margery's absence, could no
longer restrain her anxiety for the particulars.

“Purty consid'able,” said Dick. “Don't ask me!
'Tain't no need to say nuthin 'bout it to her nuther,” —
pointing in the direction where Margery had disappeared.

“Law, she hain't no curosity, not a mite,” said Hannah;
“she's jest dumb-founded. How long since it
happened, do yer s'pose?”

“Nigh on ter the time he's been missin'. If he'd given
himself a chance to come to his senses he wouldn't ha'
done it. But that gal jest sent him to destruction flyin'.”

“What gal?”

“That piece o' mischief you've been harborin' here, —
that darter o' Cousinses, — my cuss on her, and the cuss
of all honest folks! What's that?” and Dick turned
suddenly in his chair.

It was only a movement, — a slight rustling sound in
the cellar-way — too slight a sound for Hannah to notice,
— and Dick, concluding it was rats, righted himself
almost immediately in his seat.

Angie, who had already heard too much, poor thing!
waited for no more; but as soon as she had recovered
from the shock Dick's words had given her, and made
sure that she was undiscovered, crept stealthily down the
cellar stairs, and found her way out of the house by an
ignominious passage, ordinarily used only by the rats,
the frequency of whose presence in these quarters had
secured and covered her retreat.

“Fudge!” said Hannah; “don't tell me that. The
boy wan't sich a fool.”

“He was, though; an' he ain't the fust man that's
been driven to perdition by a woman!”

“Nonsense! You may tell me that till you're black
an' blue, Dick. I don't b'lieve it. What in the world
could a chit like her do to bring Geordie to sich a
pass?”

“Jilt him! turn the cold shoulder on him! threaten
him! turn him out o' doors, an' the like!”

“My stars!” cried Hannah, firing up, and becoming
Angie's champion at once, for she saw the drift of Dick's
argument, “has a gal got to take up with whoever
comes loafin' round, fur fear the feller 'll drown himself?
Next thing, like 's not, you'll be blamin' his uncle Baultie
an' me fur what's happened!”

“Wal, p'raps you was to blame some,” growled Dick,
bluntly.

“No we wan't, nuther,” said Hannah, emphatically,
giving herself a mental jerk to clear her conscience of
such little scruples as might adhere to it on this point.
“What's the use, Dick, of accusin' the innocent, to say
nothin' o' the dead, for the sake o' clearin' the guilty?
Jest as if his uncle an' me wouldn't ha' got over any thing
we had agin the lad, as soon as he showed himself a little
bit stiddy! Why, Baultie was as low-sperited as ever I
seen him the night afore he died; an' I more'n half mistrusted
'twas about the lad, though he never let on a
word to me. He'd only held a tight rein with the boy,
same as he would with a young colt. No,” — with another
spasmodic resolve, — “Baultie wan't responsible.

nor the gal nuther. Plaguy fool! why couldn't he
show a little more grit? He must ha' had an awful
weak streak in him, jest like his mother. If he'd only
known how to hold his own, he might ha' come in fur a
share in his uncle Baultie's money, — at least in what's
left on't, — an' might ha' lived 'long of his mother an' me,
an' p'raps ha' married the gal, arter all; who knows? But
i'stead o' that he must needs add sin to sin, an' crown all
by destroyin' himself, soul an' body, an' shamin' all his
relations inter the bargain! No, you needn't tell me
nothin' about it; you allers was soft on Geordie, Dick, an'
that jest spiles yer judgment. There's nobody to blame
but himself; but there, what's the use o' talkin'? — the
poor lad's dead an' gone, an' there's the end on't.”

“Not quite the end!” said Dick, in a gruff voice, and
with an obstinate expression of face, which showed how
little he was convinced or disturbed by his sister's reasoning.
“I have my 'pinions, and shall hold on to 'em; but
I'm not much of a man for a talk; what I'm waitin' here
fur 's to consult with his mother about what's to be done
with the body.”

“I vum, I never thought o' that!” said Hannah;
“but it's no use consultin' Margery. She wouldn't have
a clear idee in the matter. Ain't there any place down
ter York for disposin' o' cases like this 'ere. Of course
you wouldn't think o' bringin' him home?”

“Wal, I dun know 'bout that.”

“Dun know. Why, Dick, what are yer thinkin' on?
Bring him here to be pinted at, an' not allowed Christian

burial; p'raps be placed down there at the cross-roads
as a warnin'. I declare agin that in the name o' the
family, an' o' common sense; 't would make more talk
than a leetle, an' be a lastin' disgrace.”

“Didn't think o' that!” said Dick, musingly; “don't
want to make more talk 'bout the lad than 's necessary.
P'raps, arter all, I'd better let the city folks manage
same 's usual in these cases. They'll give him six foot
o' ground somewher', I s'pose, — an' that's all any body
can make use on.”

“Consecrated ground?” asked Hannah, emphatically.

“Consecrated! yes. The arth 's the Lord's — the
whole on't,” said Dick. “The Stein's Plains folks can
narrer down their buryin'-ground to suit the width o' their
notions. But the Lord Almighty asks no questions; an'
trust me, I 'll find a place for the poor lad somewher' in
his soil, and leave him in the care of the original Proprietor,
to wait until the day of the resurrection.”

“And the Lord have marcy on his soul!” said Hannah,
with a groan, that implied the hopelessness of her prayer.

“I ain't afraid but he will,” responded Dick, with
jealous warmth. “Anyway, the next world can't be
harder on him than this has been.”

“His own fault,” said Hannah, resolutely.

“That's as folks may think,” growled Van Hausen;
then, anxious to avoid another argument, and willing to
be spared another interview with Margery, he continued,
“wal, anyhow I s'pose we've settled this matter, — so
I'll go 'long.”

He had not ridden many rods down the road when he
overtook Angie, who had not yet gained the shelter of
home. Fleeing, as she did, in secret, she had come away
without shawl or hood, and had thrown her dress over
her head as a protection from the keen winter wind.
She looked forlorn enough making her way through the
snow, for there had been a second storm, and the cross
roads were almost impassable; but her appearance became
more wild and eerie still, as hearing his horse's
step she gave a quick glance behind her in the dusk and
saw who was approaching. “The cruel man! he will
ride me down!” was her first thought; and, crouching
beneath the folds of her dress, she sprang aside into a deep
drift. The horse shied suddenly, frightened, no doubt, at
the unearthly apparition with its fluttering garments. Instinctively
she dropped the disguise which had so startled
the horse, thus baring her head and shoulders to the
piercing wind. Van Hausen seized his heavy whip.
“He will strike me dead!” she inwardly exclaimed,
and looked up imploringly, her hands clasped together
as if deprecating his anger, her hair streaming in the
wind.

He saw her, and he did not see her; he grasped the
whip, but it was only, as it proved, to strike the horse, and
riding off at double speed, he left her there as unnoticed
as if she had been a stone. And to a stone her heart
seemed to turn at this neglect. He had used no violence
— he had only annihilated her with his scorn. It was
no mistake, no mere suspicion on her part, for, as then,

so again and again in the future — he never seemed to
see her — let him encounter her where or when, and
they often met, he never appeared to be in the least
degree conscious of her presence.

No consummate actor ever played a part so well.
No malice nor disdain, experienced elsewhere, so stung
her to the quick as the unpremeditated revenge that
had grown naturally out of this strong man's deep
disgust. Long years of obloquy could not teach her
more fully than she felt at this moment how utterly she
had died to human favor, and thus to the world.

No wonder that she hurried home to bury herself in
that consecrated spot, — all that is left to her on earth.
Well for her too that the earth is the Lord's — the whole
of it. In his care let her spirit await a resurrection, and
may he have mercy on her soul!