George Fenn - King of the Castle

“Curse him!”

“No, no, dear, don’t curse. You make me shiver.”

There was a terrible silence in the gloomy cottage room, where the ghastly face of the injured man seemed to loom out of the darkness, and looked weird and strange. The woman tried to quit his side, but he held her tightly as he lay gazing straight up at her, his breath coming in a laboured way, as if he had to force each inspiration, suffering agony the while; and if ever the stamp of death was set-plainly upon human countenance, it was upon his.

“Sally,” he gasped, and his voice was changing rapidly. “Sally!”

“Yes, dear.”

“Don’t leave me. Where are you?”

“Here, darling; holding your hands.”

“Why did you put out the light?”

“Isaac, my own dear man!”

“Listen. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, dear, yes.”

“I’m dying fast, and I shall never rest without – without you do what I say.”

“Yes, dear, I’ll do anything you tell me – you know I will.”

“That’s right. Quick, before it’s too late.”

“Oh, if help would only come,” moaned the woman.

“No help can come, my lass. Now, put your hand under me and lift my head on your shoulder. That’s right. Ah!”

He uttered a groan of agony, and lay speechless as she raised him; and the wife turned cold with horror, as it seemed to her that he was dead, but his lips moved again.

“Now,” he said, “I can talk without feeling strangled. Gartram has made an end of me, and it’s a dying man speaking to you. It’s almost a voice from the dead telling you what to do.”

“Yes, dear, tell me. What shall I do?”

“You’ll swear to do what I tell you?”

“Yes, Isaac, anything.”

“You’re in the presence of death, wife, with the good and evil all about us, and what you say is registered against you.”

“Yes, dear,” said the woman, shuddering.

“You swear, so help you God, to obey my last words?”

“Yes, dear,” cried the woman, with her eyes lighting up, and a look of exultation in every feature; “I’ll swear to obey you.”

“Then you will measure out to Norman Gartram, and pay back to him all he has paid to me.”

“Isaac!”

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as it says in the Holy Book.”

“Husband!”

“You have sworn to do it, woman, and there is no drawing back. As he murdered me, so you shall cut short his cursed life.”

“Isaac, I cannot.”

“Woman, you have sworn to the dying; you are the instrument, the chosen vessel to execute God’s wrath upon this man. For he shall not live to do more wrong to the suffering people he has been grinding under his heel.”

“No, no: I could not do this thing, Isaac, it is too terrible.”

“She has sworn to do it. She has heard the message, and his days will come to an end as mine have come, and he will go on no longer in his wickedness, piling up riches. Ha! ha! ha! Thou fool – this night shall thy – wife – are you there?”

“Isaac! Husband!”

“Ah, yes. Good wife, my last words. Words from the other world. You will not rest till you have fulfilled your sacred task. I shall not rest till then – you – the chosen vessel – His wrath against the oppressor – as I have been – cut off – so shall Gartram be – cut off – yours the chosen hand, wife – quick – your hand – upon my head – you swear – that you will do my bidding – the bidding of – ”

He paused, and she saw his eyes gazing wildly in hers, and it seemed as if the words she whispered were dragged from her – a voice within her seeming to utter them, and the belief that she was but the instrument of a great punishment upon a sinful man appeared to strengthen within her breast.

“Quick,” gasped the dying man; “your hand upon my head, wife – your lips close to me – let me hear you speak.”

“Isaac! Husband!” she groaned; “must I do this dreadful thing?”

“It is a message from – ”

There was a terrible silence in the narrow chamber, and the dying man’s eyes were fixed upon hers as she laid her hand upon his brow and spoke firmly, —

“I swear.”

“Hah!”

A low, rattling expiration of the breath, and as Sarah Woodham gazed in her husband’s eyes, the wild, fiery look died slowly out, to become grave and tender. Then it seemed to her that the look was fixed and strange. She had been prepared, but not for so sudden a shock as this.

“Ike!” she cried, lowering him upon the pillow. “Ike! Why don’t you speak? Do you hear me?” and her voice sounded peremptory and harsh; “do you hear me?”

She had seized him by the shoulders as she bent over him, and her voice grew more excited and strange.

“You are doing this to frighten me – to keep that oath – but I will do it. Ike, dear, do you hear me? Don’t play with me. It hurts my poor heart – to see you – so fixed and strange – Ike! Husband! Speak!”

In her horror and agony she gripped his shoulders more tightly and shook him.

Then the horrible truth refused to be kept longer at bay, and, starting back from the couch where the fixed, grave eyes seemed to follow her, reminding her of her oath, she stood with her hands raised, staring wildly for a few moments before an exceeding bitter cry escaped her lips.

“No,” she cried; “it can’t be. My darling, don’t leave me here alone in the weary world. Isaac, my own! My God! he’s dead.”

She reeled, caught at the table to save herself, the ill-supported candle dropped from the stick, and she fell with a thud upon the floor, as the candle rolled from the table close to her face, flickered for a few moments to display its ghastly lineaments, and then died out.

But it was not quite dark.

A faint light stole in beside the drawn-down blind, the chill air of morning sighed round the house, and a low murmur came from the waves fretting among the broken granite far below; and it was as if the night, too, were dead, and the low sigh died away in a hushed silence.

Then pink, pink, pink, pink came the sharp cry of the blackbird from the tangle of bramble and whortleberry high up the cliff slope, and from the grassy level above, the clear loud song of the lark, as it rose high in the pale morning sky, telling that come sorrow come joy, the world still goes round, and that Nature will have her way, even though murder be on the wing.

Sarah Woodham sat in her little parlour, sallow of cheek, and with a hard, stern look in her eyes as she gazed straight before her at the drawn-down blind, and listened to the mournful wash of the waves which came with a slow, regular pulsation through the open door.

Hers had been no romantic life. Hard working servant for years at the Fort, till, in a dry, matter-of-fact way, Isaac Woodham, quarryman, and local preacher at the little chapel, and one of the most narrow-minded and bigoted of his sect, had cast his eyes upon her in the chapel and preached to her. He had selected his texts from various parts of the Bible, where it was related that certain men took unto themselves wives, and when he was at work he told himself that Sarah was comely to look upon, and that one of these days he would marry her.

And so it was that previously, on one of these days when he had to go on business to the Fort, he had told the woman in his hard, matter-of-fact way that he had prayed for guidance, and that he felt it was his duty and her duty that they two should wed.

Sarah, in her hard, matter-of-fact way, asked for time to consider the matter herself, and at the end of a year’s cold, business-like term of probation, she gave Isaac Woodham her hand, left the Fort, and went to live at one of the quarry cottages, which became at once the most spotless in the stone-cutters’ hamlet by the sea.