the end was near. He knelt down beside the bed for a moment, holding the candle to the dying woman’s face. She opened her eyes, and muttered drowsily—
“Who’s you? get out,” but then she seemed to grasp the situation again, and she started up with a shrill yell, which made the hearers shudder, it was so weird and eerie.
“My money!” she yelled, clasping the pillow in her skinny arms. “It’s all mine, ye shan’t have it—cuss ye.”
The doctor arose from his knees, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Not worth while doing anything,” he said coolly, “she’ll be dead soon.”
The old woman, mumbling over her pillow, caught the word, and burst into tears.
“Dead! dead! my poor Rosanna, with ‘er golden ‘air, always lovin’ ‘er pore mother till ‘e took ‘er away, an’ she came back to die—die—ooh!”
Her voice died away in a long melancholy wail, that made the two girls in the corner shiver, and put their fingers in their ears.
“My good woman,” said the doctor, bending over the bed, “would you not like to see a minister?”
She looked at him with her bright, beady eyes, already somewhat dimmed with the mists of death, and said, in a harsh, low whisper—“Why?”
“Because you have only a short time to live,” said the doctor, gently. “You are dying.”
Mother Guttersnipe sprang up, and seized his arm with a scream of terror.
“Dyin’, dyin’—no! no!” she wailed, clawing his sleeve. “I ain’t fit to die—cuss me; save me—save me; I don’t know where I’d go to, s’elp me—save me.”
The doctor tried to remove her hands, but she held on with wonderful tenacity.
“It is impossible,” he said briefly.
The hag fell back in her bed.
“I’ll give you money to save me,” she shrieked; “good money—all mine—all mine. See—see—‘ere—suverains,” and tearing her pillow open, she took out a canvas bag, and from it poured a gleaming stream of gold. Gold—gold—it rolled all over the bed, over the floor, away into the dark corners, yet no one touched it, so enchained were they by the horrible spectacle of the dying woman clinging to life. She clutched some of the shining pieces, and held them up to the three men as they stood silently beside the bed, but her hands trembled so that sovereigns kept falling from them on the floor with metallic clinks.
“All mine—all mine,” she shrieked, loudly. “Give me my life—gold—money—cuss ye—I sold my soul for it—save me—give me my life,” and, with trembling hands, she tried to force the gold on them. They said no word, but stood silently looking at her, while the two girls in the corner clung together, and trembled with fear.
“Don’t look at me—don’t,” cried the hag, falling down again amid the shining gold. “Ye want me to die,—I shan’t—I shan’t—give me my gold,” clawing at the scattered sovereigns. “I’ll take it with me—I shan’t die—G—G—” whimpering. “I ain’t done nothin’—let me live—give me a Bible—save me, G—cuss it—G—, G—.” She fell back on the bed, a corpse.
The faint light of the candle flickered on the shining gold, and on the dead face, framed in tangled white hair; while the three men, sick at heart, turned away in silence to seek assistance, with that wild cry still ringing in their ears—“G—save me, G—!”
Chapter XXVIII.
Mark Frettlby Has a Visitor
According to the copy books of our youth, “Procrastination is the thief of time.” Now, Brian found the truth of this. He had been in town almost a week, but he had not yet been to see Calton. Each morning—or something very near it—he set out, determined to go direct to Chancery Lane, but he never arrived there. He had returned to his lodgings in East Melbourne, and had passed his time either in the house or in the garden. When perhaps business connected with the sale of his station compelled his presence in town, he drove straight there and back. Curiously enough he shrank from meeting any of his friends. He felt keenly his recent position in the prisoner’s dock. And even when walking by the Yarra, as he frequently did, he was conscious of an uneasy feeling—a feeling that he was an object of curiosity, and that people turned to look at him out of a morbid desire to see one who had been so nearly hanged for murder.
As soon as his station should be sold and he married to Madge he determined to leave Australia, and never set foot on it again. But until he could leave the place he would see no one, nor would he mix with his former friends, so great was his dread of being stared at. Mrs. Sampson, who had welcomed him back with shrill exclamations of delight, was loud in her expressions of disapproval as to the way he was shutting himself up.
“Your eyes bein’ ‘ollow,” said the sympathising cricket, “it is nat’ral as it’s want of air, which my ‘usband’s uncle, being a druggist, an’ well-to-do, in Collingwood, ses as ‘ow a want of ox-eye-gent, being a French name, as ‘e called the atmispeare, were fearful for pullin’ people down, an’ makin’ ‘em go off their food, which you hardly eats anythin’, an’ not bein’ a butterfly it’s expected as your appetite would be larger.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” said Brian, absently, lighting a cigarette, and only half listening to his landlady’s garrulous chatter, “but if anyone calls tell them I’m not in. I don’t want to be bothered by visitors.”
“Bein’ as wise a thing as Solomon ever said,” answered Mrs. Sampson, energetically, “which, no doubt, ‘e was in good ‘ealth when seein’ the Queen of Sheber, as is necessary when anyone calls, and not feelin’ disposed to speak, which I’m often that way myself on occasions, my sperits bein’ low, as I’ve ‘eard tell soder water ‘ave that effect on ‘em, which you takes it with a dash of brandy, tho’ to be sure that might be the cause of your want of life, and—drat that bell,” she finished, hurrying out of the room as the front-door bell sounded, “which my legs is a-givin’ way under me thro’ bein’ overworked.”
Meanwhile, Brian sat and smoked contentedly, much relieved by the departure of Mrs. Sampson, with her constant chatter, but he soon heard her mount the stairs again, and she entered the room with a telegram, which she handed to her lodger.
“‘Opin’ it don’t contain bad noose,” she said as she retreated to the door again, “which I don’t like ‘em ‘avin’ had a shock in early life thro’ one ‘avin’ come unexpected, as my uncle’s grandfather were dead, ‘avin’ perished of consumption, our family all being disposed to the disease—and now, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll get to my dinner, bein’ in the ‘abit of takin’ my meals reg’lar, and I studies my inside carefully, bein’ easily upset, thro’ which I never could be a sailor.”
Mrs. Sampson, having at last exhausted herself, went out of the room, and crackled loudly down the stairs, leaving Brian to read his telegram. He tore open the envelope and found the message was from Madge, to say that they had returned, and to ask him to dine with them that evening. Fitzgerald folded up the telegram, then rising from his seat, he walked moodily up and down the room with his hands in his pockets.
“So he is there,” said the young man aloud; “and I shall have to meet him and shake hands with him, knowing all the time what he is. If it were not for Madge I’d leave this place at once, but after the way she stood by me in my trouble, I should be a coward if I did so.”
It was as Madge had predicted—her father was unable to stay long in one place, and had come back to Melbourne a week after Brian had arrived. The pleasant party at the station was broken up,