hitherto so well observed; nay, more, I advise you to leave the house to-day. I think your strength sufficient, and the occasion, moreover, demands that you should visit an acquaintance immediately."
"Who is it?" inquired O'Connor, starting to his feet with alacrity, "thank God I am at length again my own master."
"When I this day entered the yard of the 'Cock and Anchor'," answered O'Hanlon, "the inn where you and I first encountered, I found a fellow inquiring after you most earnestly; he had a letter with which he was charged. It is from Sir Henry Ashwoode, who lies now in prison, and under sentence of death. You start, and no wonder—his old associates have convicted him of forgery."
"Gracious Heaven, is it possible?" exclaimed O'Connor.
"Nay, certain," continued O'Hanlon, "nor has he any longer a chance of escape. He has been twice reprieved—but his friend Wharton is recalled—his reprieve expires in three days' time, and then he will be inevitably executed."
"Good God, is this—can it be reality?" exclaimed O'Connor, trembling with the violence of his agitation, "give me the letter." He broke the seal, and read as follows:—
"Edmond O'Connor,—I know I have wronged you sorely. I have destroyed your peace and endangered your life. You are more than avenged. I write this in the condemned cell of the gaol. If you can bring yourself to confer with me for a few minutes, come here. I stand on no ceremony, and time presses. Do not fail. If you be living I shall expect you.
"Henry Ashwoode."
O'Connor's preparations were speedily made, and leaning upon the arm of his elder friend, he, with slow and feeble steps, and a head giddy with his long confinement, and the agitating anticipation of the scene in which he was just about to be engaged, traversed the streets which separated his lodging from the old city gaol—a sombre, stern, and melancholy-looking building, surrounded by crowded and dilapidated houses, with decayed plaster and patched windows, and a certain desolate and sickly aspect, as though scared and blasted by the contagious proximity of that dark receptacle of crime and desperation which loomed above them. At the gate O'Hanlon parted from him, appointing to meet him again in the "Cock and Anchor," whither he repaired. After some questions, O'Connor was admitted. The clanging of bolts, and bars, and door-chains, smote heavily on his heart—he heard no other sounds but these and the echoing tread of their own feet, as they traversed the long, dark, stone-paved passages which led to the dungeon in which he whom he had last seen in the pride of fashion, and youth, and strength, was now a condemned felon, and within a few hours of a public and ignominious death. The turnkey paused at one of the narrow doors opening from the dusky corridor, and unclosing it, said,—
"A gentleman, sir, to see you."
"Request him to come in," replied a voice, which, though feebler than it used to be, O'Connor had no difficulty in recognizing. In compliance with this invitation, he with a throbbing heart entered the prison-room. It was dimly lighted by a single small window set high in the wall, and darkened by iron bars. A small deal table, with a few books carelessly laid upon it, occupied the centre of the cell, and two heavy stools were placed beside it, on one of which was seated a figure, with his back to the light, to conceal, with a desperate tenacity of pride, the ravages which the terrific mental fever of weeks had wrought in his once bold and handsome face. By the wall was stretched a wretched pallet; and upon the plaster were written and scratched, according to the various moods of the miserable and guilty tenants of the place, a hundred records, some of slang philosophy, some of desperate drunken defiance, and some again of terror, but all bearing reference to the dreadful scene to which this was but the ante-chamber and the passage. Many hieroglyphical emblems of unmistakable significance had also been traced upon the walls by the successive occupants of the place, such as coffins, gallows-trees, skulls and cross-bones; the most striking among which symbols was a large figure of death upon a horse, sketched with much spirit, by some moralizing convict, with a piece of burned stick, and to which some waggish successor had appropriately added, in red chalk, a gigantic pair of spurs. As soon as O'Connor entered, the turnkey closed the door, and he and Sir Henry Ashwoode were left alone. A silence of some minutes, which neither party dared to break, ensued.
Chapter LXXI.
The Farewell
O'Connor was the first to speak. In a low voice, which trembled with agitation, he said,—
"Sir Henry Ashwoode, I have come here in answer to a note which reached me but a few minutes since. You desired a conference with me; is there any commission with which you would wish to charge me?—if so, let me know it, and it shall be done."
"None, none, Mr. O'Connor, thank you," rejoined Ashwoode, recovering his characteristic self-possession, and continuing proudly, "if you add to your visit a patient audience of a few minutes, you will have conferred upon me the only favour I desire. Pray, sit down; it is rather a hard and a homely seat," he added, with a haggard, joyless smile—"but the only one this place supplies."
Another silence followed, during which Sir Henry Ashwoode restlessly shifted his attitude every moment, in evident and uncontrollable nervous excitement. At length he arose, and walked twice or thrice up and down the narrow chamber, exhibiting without any longer care for concealment his pale, wasted face in the full light which streamed in through the grated window, his sunken eyes and unshorn chin, and worn and attenuated figure.
"You hear that sound," said he, abruptly stopping short, and looking with the same strange smile upon O'Connor; "the clank upon the flags as I walk up and down—the jingle of the fetters—isn't it strange—isn't it odd—like a dream—eh?"
Another silence followed, which Ashwoode again abruptly interrupted.
"You know all this story?—of course you do—everybody does—how the wretches have trapped me—isn't it terrible—isn't it dreadful? Oh! you cannot know what it is to mope about this place alone, when it is growing dark, as I do every evening, and in the night time. If I had been another man, I'd have been raving mad by this time. I said alone—did I?" he continued, with increasing excitement; "oh! that it were!—oh! that it were! He comes there—there," he screamed, pointing to the foot of the bed, "with all those infernal cloths and fringes about his face, morning and evening. Ah, God! such a thing—half idiot, half fiend; and still the same, though I curse him till I'm hoarse, he won't leave it. Can't they wait—can't they wait? for-ever is a long day. As I'm a living man, he's with me every night—there—there is the body, gaping and nodding—there—there—there!"
A man standing over another man who is chained to a chair.
As he shouted this with frantic and despairing horror, shaking his clenched hands toward the place of his dreaded nightly visitant, O'Connor felt a thrill of horror such as he had never known before, and hardly recovered from this painful feeling, when Sir Henry Ashwoode turned to the little table on which, among many things, a vessel of water was placed, and filling some out into a cracked cup, he added to it drops from a phial, and hastily swallowed the mixture.
"Laudanum is all the philosophy or religion I can boast; it's well to have even so much," said he, returning the bottle to his pocket. "It's a dead secret, though, that I have got any; this is a present from the doctor they allow me to see, and I'm on honour not—to poison myself—isn't it comical?—for fear he should get into a scrape; but I've another game to play—no fear of that—no, no."
Another silence followed, and Sir Henry Ashwoode said quickly,—
"What do the people say about it? Do they think I forged that accursed bond? Do they think me guilty?"
O'Connor declared his entire ignorance of public rumour, alleging his own illness, and consequent close confinement, as the cause of it.
"They sha'n't believe me guilty, no, they sha'n't. Look ye, sir, I have one good feeling left," he resumed, vehemently; "I will not let my name suffer. If the most resolute firmness to the very last, and the most solemn renunciation of the charges preferred against