"It is but a few hours," he thought to himself, "and I can get away the first thing in the morning."He was looking toward the occupied bed as that idea passed through his mind, and the sharp, angular eminence made in the clothes by the dead man's upturned feet again caught his eye.He advanced and drew the curtains, purposely abstaining, as he did so, from looking at the face of the corpse, lest he might unnerve himself at the outset by fastening some ghastly impression of it on his mind.He drew the curtain very gently, and sighed involuntarily as he closed it.
"Poor fellow," he said, almost as sadly as if he had known the man."Ah! poor fellow!"He went next to the window.The night was black, and he could see nothing from it.The rain still pattered heavily agai nst the glass.He inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the back of the house, remembering that the front was sheltered from the weather by the court and the buildings over it.
While he was still standing at the window--for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it--while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church clock strike ten.Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house was astir the next morning?
Under any other circumstances he would have gone down to the public-house parlor, would have called for his grog, and would have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life.But the very thought of whiling away the time in this manner was now distasteful to him.
The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already.Thus far his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with no troubles to conquer and no trials to face.He had lost no relation whom he loved, no friend whom he treasured.Till this night, what share he had of the immortal inheritance that is divided among us all had lain dormant within him.Till this night, Death and he had not once met, even in thought.
He took a few turns up and down the room, then stopped.The noise made by his boots on the poorly-carpeted floor jarred on his ear.
He hesitated a little, and ended by taking the boots off, and walking backward and forward noiselessly.
All desire to sleep or to rest had left him.The bare thought of lying down on the unoccupied bed instantly drew the picture on his mind of a dreadful mimicry of the position of the dead man.
Who was he? What was the story of his past life? Poor he must have been, or he would not have stopped at such a place as the Two Robins Inn; and weakened, probably, by long illness, or he could hardly have died in the manner which the landlord had described.Poor, ill, lonely--dead in a strange place--dead, with nobody but a stranger to pity him.A sad story; truly, on the mere face of it, a very sad story.
While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he had stopped insensibly at the window, close to which stood the foot of the bed with the closed curtains.At first he looked at it absently; then he became conscious that his eyes were fixed on it; and then a perverse desire took possession of him to do the very thing which he had resolved not to do up to this time--to look at the dead man.
He stretched out his hand toward the curtains, but checked himself in the very act of undrawing them, turned his back sharply on the bed, and walked toward the chimney-piece, to see what things were placed on it, and to try if he could keep the dead man out of his mind in that way.
There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with some mildewed remains of ink in the bottle.There were two coarse china ornaments of the commonest kind; and there was a square of embossed card, dirty and fly-blown, with a collection of wretched riddles printed on it, in all sorts of zigzag directions, and in variously colored inks.He took the card and went away to read it at the table on which the candle was placed, sitting down with his back resolutely turned to the curtained bed.
He read the first riddle, the second, the third, all in one corner of the card, then turned it round impatiently to look at another.Before he could begin reading the riddles printed here the sound of the church clock stopped him.
Eleven.
He had got through an hour of the time in the room with the dead man.
Once more he looked at the card.It was not easy to make out the letters printed on it in consequence of the dimness of the light which the landlord had left him--a common tallow candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers.Up to this time his mind had been too much occupied to think of the light.He had left the wick of the candle unsnuffed till it had risen higher than the flame, and had burned into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of the charred cotton fell off from time to time in little flakes.He took up the snuffers now and trimmed the wick.The light brightened directly, and the room became less dismal.
Again he turned to the riddles, reading them doggedly and resolutely, now in one corner of the card, now in another.All his efforts, however, could not fix his attention on them.He pursued his occupation mechanically, deriving no sort of impression from what he was reading.It was as if a shadow from the curtained bed had got between his mind and the gayly printed letters--a shadow that nothing could dispel.At last he gave up the struggle, threw the card from him impatiently, and took to walking softly up and down the room again.
The dead man, the dead man, the _hidden_ dead man on the bed!
There was the one persistent idea still haunting him.Hidden! Was it only the body being there, or was it the body being there _concealed,_ that was preying on his mind? He stopped at the window with that doubt in him, once more listening to the pattering rain, once more looking out into the black darkness.
Still the dead man!
